Dimitri Chostakovitch (1906-1975)
Symphonie de chambre en do mineur, op. 110a, d'après le Quatuor à cordes n° 8
"From Jewish Folk Poetry", op. 79a

Arvo Pärt (1935-)
Cantus à la mémoire de Benjamin Britten

Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996)
Rhapsodie sur un thème moldave

Evelina Dobraceva, soprano
Marina Prudenskaya, contralto
Vsevolod Grivnov, ténor
Staatskapelle Dresden
Michail Jurowski, direction

In July 1960 Dmitri Shostakovich composed his famous String Quartet No. 8 in Gohrisch, south-east of Dresden — the only work of his written outside the Soviet Union. To commemorate the work’s genesis, the International Shostakovich Festival was founded in Gohrisch in 2010 — since then it has attracted concertgoers from around the world to the spa resort near the Elbe River. In the first year the festival already received high praise from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “In an authentic setting, unique festival programming was created with a balance of works that would normally be expected at established festivals such as in Salzburg or Bayreuth: a judicious and deftly concentrated concept, performed by renowned artists and graced by the genius loci.” One of the first guest artists in Gohrisch was conductor Michail Jurowski, who as a child used to play piano duets with the composer. Concert highlights of his performances with the Staatskapelle Dresden, which played an important role in starting the festival, have now been issued as live recordings on this first CD.