LDV117

20 POULENC ∙ STRAVINSKY ∙ PROKOFIEV ‘Wind blowing through a graveyard’ was Prokofiev’s description of the opening of his First Sonata, written in 1938 and 1946. That brings to mind images of destruction during the Second World War, but today we think of the ruins in Ukraine . . . Itamar Golan: Of the three works on the programme, this is probably the closest to my heart. It’s so powerful, and it’s the one that most reflects the times we live in, that’s for sure. Its harshness, its starkness, its discourse issuing directly from the composer’s soul, his innermost depths. And I’d like to say something about the very beginning of the work: the last time David and I played this sonata in concert, just before we started, I had in my mind an image of Putin sitting in his bunker giving terrifying orders to his soldiers. David Grimal: Violence, darkness, despair are also part of Russian culture. This is a people whose identity is steeped in blood, whether in the violence inflicted on others, or the violence they inflict on themselves. You also find that idea of suffering in the Russian violin school. There is no expression without suffering. Westerners can’t understand this darkness, because we have already exhausted our strength when they haven’t even begun to do so. We are afraid of feeling the cold in winter; they are prepared to have fifty million deaths. That’s in their culture. I’ve frequently been in contact with musicians who were victims of the Soviet system, often Jewish musicians, who suffered, and who at the same time were defined by that suffering. This sonata contains that culture of suffering, presented with visceral brutality.