Earlier Tuesday evening Prom 62 took place in London, featuring the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, voted by Gramophone Magazine recently as being the finest in the world. The
second part of the concert, after a few minutes of the intermission feature, had a performance of the Shostakovich 10th Symphony, released shortly after Stalin's death and said to be somewhat of a celebration(Stalin had given him a really hard time), with an ominous opening movement, tumultuous second and triumphant conclusion.
Two encores were performed: the Sibelius Valse Triste and a vigorous excerpt from Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtzensk, which Stalin had banned.
Also worth hearing is the performance of the Shostakovich 11th Symphony, commemorating the 1905 uprising and massacre which took place in St. Petersburg, which was featured on Prom 46 and repeated on yesterday's
BBC Afternoon Program . Fast forwarding about an hour into the program gets to the symphony, which has a segment in the second movement that's about the most violent in all of symphonic music.
