Cellist Alisa Weilerstein joins the National Symphony Orchestra as the guest artist in a program of two remarkable 20th-century works conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No. 5 in 1937 under Stalin’s regime. Although he was, at the time, out of favor with the government and feared for his life, his powerful composition pleased those in power. Since his death in 1975, it has been recorded by more than two dozen major orchestras, among them the NSO led by Mstislav Rostropovich in 1994.

Edward Elgar’s cello concerto is a brilliant contrast with its emotional and ethereal elements. Weilerstein first heard it as a child. She played the recording by her idol, Jacqueline du Pre, over and over again. It was not until she began learning it seriously that she put aside the recording and created her own interpretation.