Bernstein's Candide is an exuberant fusion of European operetta and Broadway musical. The overture bursts with energy and wit, building to an exhilarating climax based on 'Glitter and be Gay', a brilliant pastiche of every coloratura aria ever composed. Korngold's gloriously lyrical Violin Concerto of 1945, intended for Jascha Heifetz, marked his post-war return to the concert hall after many years writing for Hollywood. It overflows with Romantic melodies all beautifully orchestrated with his trademark combination of subtlety and inventiveness. Written in 1957 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution, Shostakovich's immensely successful Eleventh Symphony engaged both his sense of tragedy and his socialist conscience. At its centre it depicts with graphic realism the massacre of unarmed workmen in 1905. Preceded by a bleak introductory movement which sets the scene, it is followed by a haunting elegy for the dead and a final expression of revolutionary fervour.
