Tears and Laughter

Even today, it’s hard to tell whether Shostakovich’s mighty Fifth Symphony tells a story of triumph or despair – or whether his description of it as ‘a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism’ was anything more than a Stalin-era survival strategy. But there’s no such ambiguity about the impassioned Nova by Kyiv-born Victoria Vita Polevá. Or indeed about tonight’s premiere from Elena Langer; in fact, there’s a definite smile on the face of this tribute – part choral work, part cello concerto – to the nonsense verse of Edward Lear. Exactly as you’d expect from the endlessly imaginative composer of Figaro Gets a Divorce.