99. Main Evening Concert

Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata was his last work, composed in 1975 in the hospital where he died. Performers have naturally tended to treat it with great reverence, but hand the score to a new generation of musicians and it can sound very different. Grigori Frid was a lesser-known but much longer lived contemporary of Shostakovich, best known for his work as a teacher. His short First Viola Sonata, dating from 1971, opens in a tranquil and elegiac mood leading to a highly conflicted Allegro before concluding with a long deeply affecting lament from the solo viola. Henk Badings is a Dutch composer from the same generation, who has found a great advocate in Dana Zemtsov with her recording of Dutch Hidden Gems.