Sjostakovitsj en Prokofjev Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest

After the Revolution, Russia experienced a musical brain drain. Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, the best composers left the country. The Russian premiere of The Love for the Three Oranges rubbed the loss in painfully. Then – May 1926, exactly a century ago – the 19-year-old Shostakovich made his debut with his brilliant First Symphony. Relief everywhere: the future of Russian music had been saved.