Inspired by the idea(s) of freedom, on the verge of the Carnation Revolution’s 50th anniversary, the MUSICAL-MENTE concerts evoke the creative genius of two composers within the sphere of the political regimes of their time. The preludes offer an opportunity to reflect on the connections between art and politics. In February, we will focus on Dmitri Shostakovich’s suppressed freedom under Soviet rule, a regime with which he had a complex relationship. He wrote works that were implicit protests (starting with the 1930s, when he began being attacked in the Pravda newspaper, the time in which he composed the Sonata featured in this concert’s programme), alongside music that was officially lauded by the regime (his Piano quintet, for which he received the Stalin Prize). In March, we will highlight exiled freedom, in the form of the Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold flight from Nazism. In the 1930s, he went to live in the USA, where he became a successful composer of film scores, for which he won two Academy Awards. A lover of Shakespeare, he wrote music and song cycles with texts from the Bard’s plays, which are represented in the concert’s line-up. His Marietta’s Lied, one of the most recorded 20th-century arias, finishes this third cycle of MUSICAL-MENTE on a high note.