Dmitry Sitkovetsky Performs the Great Violin Concerto No. 1 by Shostakovich

The Violin Concerto No. 1 by Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich is arguably the greatest ever written. The four movement work with a practically unplayable cadenza leading into a Burlesque final movement at breakneck speeds, is also the most challenging.

This weekend Triad audiences can hear one of the world's greatest interpreters of this work in concert. His father Julian was one of the first to perform the concerto following its1955 premiere by violinist, David Oistrakh. Internationally renowned violinist and Greensboro Symphony Music Director Dmitry Sitkovetsky was just a toddler when his father began practicing this piece. Even at that early age, little Dmitry was immediately drawn to the music. 80 plus performances of the work later, he says the sparse, mysterious opening Nocturne provides the most challenges in performance.

On Friday night, January 23^rd at 7:30 PM in Aycock Auditorium, and Saturday at 8:00 in Dana Auditorium, Dmitry will perform the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Shostakovich with the Greensboro Symphony under the baton of Nate Beversluis. Also on the program Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess and Mussorgsky's
Pictures at an Exhibition. This weekend, you can also hear Dmitry at the Greensboro Symphony's Chamber Music Recital.

In today's show, you'll hear a 1965 recording of Julian Sitkovetsky and the opening Nocturne movement, as well as Dmitry Sitkovetsky's 2000 live recording with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, with Yuri Temirkanov conducting. Dmitry Sitkovetsky explains the appropriate pacing for a work of this magnitude, a work that is much like a play with four acts, he says.