Breaking Down Walls
In 1989, Rostropovich sang a song of freedom of expression before the freshly breached Berlin Wall. The dedicatee of Shostakovich’s cello concertos whispered a gentle melody to those cold, grey barriers – one that they would carry, unshaken, to future generations. Like a river bearing witness to the passage of time, never ceasing its bucolic flow. One such river is the Orawa, captured in minimalist timbres by Wojciech Kilar. At times gentle ripples, at others a surging tide – its waters enter into dialogue with Schumann’s Symphony No. 2., a work that reflects a time darkened by illness and depression. Only a return to the foundations of music – to Bach – and the act of composing this symphony served as a form of therapy, enabling him to overcome every obstacle and let a single desire prevail: the will to live!
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