Soup Concert

The title of Russian Sofia Gubaidulina’s piece for violin and piano serves beautifully as a metaphor for both her own career, and for that of fellow countryman Sergei Prokofiev. Like tightrope walkers, they have balanced between their own artistic expression on the one hand, and the risk of being punished by their homeland’s regime for such expression on the other. After Perestroika, Gubaidulina’s music has been able to be disseminated freely beyond Russia’s borders; she was the focus of Konserthuset’s Composer Festival in 2000 and received the Polar Music Prize in 2002.

Prokofiev’s first sonata for violin and piano was written during Stalin’s Great Purge, when many of Prokofiev’s colleagues and friends were arrested and executed. The piece was created in a period permeated by anxiety, fear and despair, and perhaps he wrote it to alleviate his own trauma. His work on the sonata was interrupted by other assignments and World War II, and it was not completed until 1946. It is dedicated to violinist David Oistrakh.

French-born violinist Gabriel Cornet came to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016. In this programme, he is joined by French pianist Tom Grimaud.

Menu: Artichoke soup with potatoes and crème fraîche, served topped with bacon.