Kevin and I attended the Orchestra at Temple Square Spring concert Friday night. I didn't really look into the program beforehand and began to be a little concerned as we read over the brochure before it began. I remembered a piece in the newspaper warning that the audience might have a difficult time with some of the music. The first half of the concert featured a song cycle of poems written by a Dutch Holocaust survivor set to music. The text was upsetting and haunting. The music was also haunting, but beautiful, and the soloist- the daughter of the Georgian born composer-was amazing. The second half of the concert featured Symphony no. 5 by Shostakovich, which was written in 1937 at the height of Stalin's atrocities. The symphony was crafted to please the ruling party while at the same time containing many symbolic elements of subversion and resistance. I wondered if I would be able to feel this as I listened, and I definitely was.
As I listened to these and the other pieces in the program- all written in response to the Holocaust and to other forms of political repression- I was deeply moved. I found it a particularly appropriate program for this season of Lent, Passover, and Easter. I found my thoughts and feelings turned toward the hope and promise of the atonement and the resurrection.