Forbidden Music

About the production

Since March 2025 and continuing until December, the Görlitz Collections at Kaisertrutz Görlitz are hosting a special exhibition entitled »National Socialism in Görlitz – 80 years since the end of the war«. In reference to this, the Lausitz Festival is dedicating one of its concerts in Görlitz to music that was viewed with suspicion or even hatred by the rulers of the »Third Reich« and the Soviet Union, and was therefore ostracized and in some cases even banned. The Quatuor Danel from Belgium, which already thrilled the Lausitz Festival audience last year, returns this time with string quartets by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Dmitri Shostakovich and Mieczysław Weinberg. What connects these composers against the backdrop of so-called ostracized music, which the National Socialists described as »degenerate«?

Both Mendelssohn and Weinberg were victims of National Socialism because of their Jewish origins. One was posthumously defamed and his monuments were demolished. The other had to flee Warsaw for the Soviet Union as a 19-year-old during the German invasion of Poland in 1939 to escape the Nazis. Dmitri Shostakovich's role in this context draws attention to the oppression and desire for destruction that continued to shape intellectual life in many places in the second half of the 20th century: Weinberg was imprisoned during Stalin's nationwide anti-Semitic campaign in 1952/1953. He would probably have fallen victim to the regime if his mentor and friend Shostakovich had not stood up for him.

When Shostakovich visited the Saxon spa town of Gohrisch in 1960, where he composed his Eighth String Quartet, it was against the backdrop of the repression he faced living under the authoritarian system of the Soviet Union. The International Shostakovich Days Gohrisch write: »String Quartet No. 8 is an extremely tragic, personal work, which he understood as a ›requiem‹ for himself, as can be seen from a letter to Isaak Glikman dated 19 July 1960, which was only published many years after his death.« Of Shostakovich's 15 string quartets, the eighth is the one most frequently performed today. It bears witness to how the composer, who oscillated between conformity and opposition, became a victim himself – a victim of the tightrope walk between tolerance and ostracism by those in power. Seen in this light, the Quatuor Danel's concert programme revolves around the theme of »Forbidden Music« in two senses.

Programme:

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, op. 80
Dimitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, op. 110
Mieczysław Weinberg: String Quartet No. 6 in E minor, op. 35

Our additional recommendation: Special exhibition at Kaisertrutz

The special exhibition »National Socialism in Görlitz – 80 Years of the End of the War« of the Görlitz Sammlungen in the Kaisertrutz Görlitz runs until 14 December 2025.

More about the exhibition

By bus & train to the concert

Why don't you leave your car at home and come to the event by public transport? Click on the button to calculate your route. The destination is already pre-filled in the trip planner.

We owe this service for the Lausitz Festival to the transport associations VVO, VBB and ZVON.

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