Bernard Haitink conducts Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8
OK, let's get a bit rougher here. Shostakovich's piano music takes a back seat to his work for orchestra and even for string quartet, though he himself was a tremendous pianist and wrote quite a lot of music for his instrument. He felt he could say more by using a larger variety of instruments. I'll have to agree with Dmitri there. The year was 1984. I had just graduated from college with a German degree and wanted to get back to the old continent to enjoy long breakfasts with friends, have coffee and cake in the afternoons and go to concerts at night, all the while officially looking for a job in "international business". - whatever that might have meant. So I spent eight months back and forth between my old friends in Münster and my sister and new friends in Vienna. While in Münster I went back to the foreign students' office and visited the animated secretary, Frau Droste zu Senden, who let me sign up for a week-long DAAD bus trip to Berlin, which was the...