Semyon Bychkov has spoken to Richard Fairman for the Financial Times about his new PENTATONE recording of Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 with the Czech Philharmonic, the orchestra of which he is chief conductor and music director.
Bychkov recalls studying in Leningrad in the early 1970s, where he often saw Shostakovich at concerts “as close as you are to me now”. He also remembers the day in 1974 when the KGB found out he was not “politically reliable” after his conducting of the Fifth Symphony, and how he left the Soviet Union a year later.
Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos 5 and 7 was released on Novembre 6th.
Read the full interview in the Financial Times