Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest / Mariss Jansons

Breakthroughs: briefly, the music lets us listen into the course of time. Haydn evoked the memory of the Ottoman wars; and his contemporaries listened to the music as if to a film without images. In his tenth symphony, Shostakovich presented to the public a sarcastic portrait of Stalin, immediately after the dictator’s death. His contemporaries recognised this portrait from its sounds. Through these excursions into history, both works achieved the most powerful effect. The power of the world diminishes as soon as it sets foot into the forum of art. A message of joy. Great style, said Nietzsche, arises when beauty triumphs over monstrosity.