3---Furtwangler directing Bruckner ninth symphony in 1944 in Berlin under bombs noise ... Apocalyptic and unsurpassed musical event.. Listening it you are there...
2--- Pianist Sofronitsky playing Scriabin in the Nazi assaulted Leningrad in 1941or in Moscow brought by plane in 1942 and listen in ectasy by Russian crowds waiting for germans...Scriabin is so hard to play right but Sofronitsky is a god... Even his disciple Gilels and Richter bowed to him...Listening it you are there ...
1--- Or Maria Yudina playing a Mozart concerto one time for the radio when Stalin was listening... Stalin loved it so much he ordered to have the vinyl album right now...Now one dare to say no... The concert was not recored but live... Then in the night Yudina played it a second time for the engineers to record it changing even of maestro, because the first one was sick by fear... And guess what? After listening the album in ectasy Stalin offer big money to Yudina... One of the greatest pianist of all time, and a fearless woman, who declined the money for herself but accept it for his church even if she lived in abject poverty and say to the dictator that she will pray God for his crimes instead... textually : "Thank you for your aid. I will pray day and night and ask the Great Lord to forgive you your great sins. The Lord is merciful and He will forgive you".
Extraordinarily, Stalin did not put her on execution or on Solovki island in the artic circle, as he did for EVERYONE else who dare to accused him ... Even Shostakovitch was sleeping waiting death with a suitcase ready each night, and never say a negative word against Stalin as Yudina the fearless pianist say it loud to Stalin in his face on telephone... Guess what ? Some 10 years after Stalin was discovered after 2 days alone in his room dying alone because everybody fear him too much to dare to open the door without permission...On his table near his bed some vinyl album was turning without had been stop by no one for hours and hours after Stalin death : it was the Mozart same album concerto no 23 especially recorded in one night for him by Yudina...
Imagine the bravery of this woman... And in Russian pianist school she is beside, not under, Neuhaus, Sofronitsky, Scriabin, and the others giants ...