The Rise and Fall of Freedom

Experience three composers, each from the same nation, but living in different levels of freedom and oppression. Mussorgsky’s Prelude to Khovanshchina depicts a tranquil dawn scene, and Tchaikovsky expresses strong emotions and sentiments in his Romeo and Juliet. Inspired by the tyranny of living during Stalin’s reign, Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony portrays the resistance to fascism and the…