Great Freedom

This recording of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra’s emotionally charged Warsaw performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony captures one of the artistic highlights of 2023. The orchestra was created as a cultural riposte to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Their Beethoven has the unique feature that its text, Schiller’s great poem of freedom “Ode to Joy”, is sung in Ukrainian, indeed it also expresses Schiller’s opening word of “Freude” (Joy) as the Ukrainian word “Slava” (Glory) to electrifying effect in a moving echo of Ukraine’s rallying call of resistance in the face of aggression, Slava Ukraini! (“Glory to Ukraine!").