Summary: We're listening to the 20th century. Throughout 2013, the London Philharmonic Orchestra appears as the major orchestral partner in Southbank Centre’s year-long, multi-art-form festival The Rest Is Noise. The festival looks at the key works of the 20th century through a wide lens, taking in the political happenings, social movements, cultural climates and personal stories that gave rise to these inspiring and sometimes controversial pieces of music. On 17 May the LPO's Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski conducts a programme of 1930s works written in the Soviet Union by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. In this podcast he introduces Shostakovich's Symphony No 6, which he describes as 'absurd music for an absurb time'. We also include Shostakovich's letter to the Soviet General Assembly in 1948 in which he apologises for failing to write 'sufficiently uplifting and nationalist music'. The new release on the LPO Label is of Mahler Symphony No 1, including the original fifth movement 'Blumine', recorded in concert in December 2010 with LPO Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski. Find out more are www.lpo.org.uk/shop LPO-0070 (£9.99 incl P+P) Visit therestisnoise.lpo.org.uk for full information about the festival.
