poster for 2004 Russia - Eastern Europe II
× The 2004 season ended with programs of works by composers from Eastern Europe and Russia: languages often marginalized in discussions of Bach and Beethoven, but that nevertheless produced a tremendous treasury of chamber music. Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s Gypsy Songs and Piano Quartet both incorporate melodies and folk dances evocative of the Eastern European countryside. Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok lend bleak musical settings to texts by one of Russia’s greatest poets.