About the Concert

The Cello Concerto by Camille Saint-Saens is one of the showpieces for this instrument. It is also a showpiece for Julia Hagen, whereby actually everything she plays on the cello is an intense listening experience for her audience. No wonder if you come from a family of musicians like she does, right? No, she says herself, as a child her friends and sports were at least as important to her. Now, however, she is rightly one of the "shooting stars" of the field and will make all facets of the French work shine in the Kulturpalast.

Shostakovich's Tenth, on the other hand, is one of the Soviet Russian composer's more sombre works. One does not really know whether it is to be interpreted as an energetic critique of Stalinism or more loyal to the state. The best thing to do is to let the music work on you as music. Its energy, power and also the lyrical passages develop a magic all of their own.