»Death awaits every one of us. I can't see anything good in the fact that our life ends like this,« wrote Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich about his 14th Symphony. »I want the people who listen to this symphony to understand that life is a truly beautiful thing. It is a passionate protest against death.« Inspired by composers like Modest Mussorgsky or Benjamin Britten (»War Requiem«), Shostakovich bundles together eleven movements and eleven poems by four different writers to create a complex work on the subject of death. In this performance, the Elbphilharmonie's Ensemble in Residence accompanies the fine baritone Matthias Goerne and Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian, who became a star overnight in the title role of Richard Strauss's »Salome« at the 2018 Salzburg Festival. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote, »Romeo Castellucci produces ›Salome‹ as a grandiose drama of cruelty, and Asmik Grigorian excels as Salome«. read less