The KBS Symphony Orchestra will present “Soul of Russia” on Feb. 28 at 5 p.m. at the Seoul Arts Center, pairing Rachmaninoff’s early 20th-century meditation on mortality with Shostakovich’s mid-century confrontation with historical trauma.
On the podium will be Eliahu Inbal, the 90-year-old Israeli conductor whose career spans more than six decades and includes long tenures with major European orchestras such as the Frankfurt Radio Symphony.
The program opens with Rachmaninoff’s “The Isle of the Dead,” Op. 29, a tone poem inspired by Swiss painter Arnold Bocklin’s symbolic image of a solitary boat approaching a rocky island. Composed in 1908, the music, dark in tone, captures feelings of isolation and the space between life and death, showing the reflective character of Russian Romantic music of that period.
The second half is devoted to Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 in B-flat minor, Op. 113, “Babi Yar.” The symphony takes its title from the ravine near Kyiv, Ukraine, where Nazi forces carried out a mass execution of Jews in 1941. Composed in 1962, the work sets poems by Russian writer Yevgeny Yevtushenko and addresses antisemitism, repression and moral responsibility.
For this piece, Russian bass Grigory Shkarupa takes the stage as soloist, joined by a combined male chorus drawn from the Seongnam Civic Choir and the Yongin Civic Choir.
Scored for bass soloist, male chorus and large orchestra, the symphony departs from conventional symphonic form, integrating vocal and choral forces into a work that functions as both musical statement and historical reflection. Its premiere in the Soviet Union was met with political controversy, and subsequent revisions reflected the pressures of the time.
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