221. Livery Evening Concert, London Symphony Orchestra / Shostakovich & Orff, Barbican Centre, 23 June 2024

To end the Livery Masters’ Weekend we were invited to a concert in the Barbican.  It was a most fitting climax.  Thank you to the LSO for the reception during the interval: a drink was very welcome.

In both pieces, the energy of the musicians and singers was breath-taking.  It was particularly fascinating to see the words of the libretto on a screen behind the performers - the perspective of Stalinist Russia, followed by the crude and intimate words of the “vagabond poets”.

The flyer for the event summed it up:

This is what in Medieval Bavaria monks copied down a collection of mischievous songs by vagabond poets. In 1935, a German composer came across a second-hand book containing the songs and used it to create a blazingly exciting choral extravaganza. Pounding rhythms, catchy tunes, sonorous Latin verses about wine, women and song – Orff’s Carmina Burana might have been an idiosyncratic hit, but it remains absolutely irresistible.

It’s paired with Shostakovich’s Third Symphony, which appears on the surface as an energetic paean to Soviet ideals – until you catch a glimpse of the underlying irony. Gianandrea Noseda steers the powerful forces of the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a rousing climax to the season.

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