What’s in a date? Well, sometimes quite a lot. Take January 26, 1788, for example. Viewed through various cultural, historical and political lenses, successive generations of Australians have invested this date with a variety of meanings and associations and continue to do so. Dates also loomed large in the Soviet Russia of Dmitri Shostakovich. Years and months of revolutions, birthdays of dictators – many of these were celebrated with music and other art designed to align closely with the prevailing politics of the regime.

Music lovers with an eye to history might have hoped that this year would have seen a rare outing of Shostakovich’s 12th Symphony, given that it commemorates the revolution of 1917 that brought Lenin to power. The only problem there is that the symphony is widely regarded as the composer’s least successful, and the one most in thrall to his political masters.

Instead, Melbourne audiences have been blessed with an equally rare performance of Shostakovich’s 13th Symphony which powerfully commemorates the utterly appalling massacre of most of Kiev’s Jews by the Nazis at Babi Yar in late September 1941. No matter that the dates don’t really line up (the organisers billed the concert as marking the end...