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University of Reading says happy birthday to Shostakovich in Autumn concert – University of Reading

Beethoven and Shostakovich - whose 100th Birthday would have been this year - feature in the University of Reading's Chorus and Orchestra concert this Sunday (December 10 2006). Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto will be sandwiched between Beethoven's powerful music for Goethe's heroic drama Egmont and his 1807 Mass in C major. Soloists for the Mass will be Soprano Anna Bolton, Alto Belinda Williams, Tenor Harry Bagnall and Bass Jerzy Nagorski. Pianist Nils Franke will play the Shostakovich. The Conductor is the University's Director of Music, Stuart Dunlop. Mr Dunlop said: "You may know Beethoven's overture to Egmont, but the incidental music is less familiar. It is just the response you'd expect from the passionate Beethoven to this tale of oppression, selfless love and the final victory of Freedom. "Shostakovich wrote the compact and diamond-bright second concerto as a present for his son Maxim's 19th birthday. Along with the zeal and energy you'd expect from this composer, there is in the second movement a seam of tender lyricism rarely mined and possibly paternal in origin. "Beethoven's Mass in C comes from the period of the 5th and 6th Symphonies. In some ways more conservative than either it was nonetheless controversial in its time. The great composer's first mass nods respectfully to Haydn while gathering for the great leap into music only Beethoven could have imagined." The concert starts at 4:30pm in the Great Hall on the University's London Road campus. Tickets are £8 or £5 for concessions and can be booked by contacting Alex Richardson on 0118 378 5256 or sending her an email. End For media enquiries please contact: Alex Richardson, Music@Reading 0118 378 5256 music@reading.ac.uk