(December 27, 2016) LaVerdi in partnership with Italian-Russian Association transform the Auditorium of Milan in a Russian corner, with the beginning of the new year. Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 18 the start will be with ‘Tchaikovsky and Fate. The overwhelming adventure of the Fourth Symphony’, talk of Fausto Malcovati: Tchaikovsky in his early years has been repeatedly tempted by Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest are two compositions inspired by the English playwright. The first great triumph as a composer comes with the Fourth Symphony, dominated by the theme of fate: it is the composition opening his relationship with Baroness von Meck. No coincidence that in their letters it is called “our symphony”. Friday, February 3, 2017 is the turn of the ‘merry war of Shostakovich which the party don’t like’: talk of Fausto Malcovati. It should’ve been the last of a trilogy dedicated to the war: the Seventh to the siege of Leningrad, the Eighth to the victims of conflict, the Ninth to victory. Shostakovich says that his plan was to celebrate the heroic struggle of the Red Army liberating the Russian land from the Nazi enemy, but actually what prevail are serene, cheerful, wild and even clownish notes. The official criticism, so, strongly attacked the symphony, accusing the author of unpatriotic attitude.