If your name is Solzhenitsyn and your concert program is devoted to the music of Soviet Russia, questions inevitably arise about the meaning of your repertoire choices.

Ignat Solzhenitsyn, the pianist, conductor and son of Russia's Nobel Prize-winning writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, came to WQXR recently with the violist Hsin-Yun Huang, to perform Soviet-era sonatas by Shostakovich and Prokofiev. When asked whether the program was intended as a commentary on modern-day Russia, given its widely-reported curbs on press and artistic freedom, Solzhenitsyn spoke carefully but emphatically.

"Music this great always transcends the bounds of its time and place of creation," he said. "During the Cold War, there was no doubt in my mind that the only real bridge between America and the Soviet Union was culture. To the extent that today unfortunately gives us a whiff of that time, music is the best way to remind what holds us together."

Solzhenitsyn knows a lot about the dreadful history of the 20th century through the tribulations of his late father, who spent eight years in Soviet labor camps after World War II. He grew up in Vermont when his father moved there with his family in 1976, after being exiled from the Soviet Union. He has built a career as both a pianist and conductor, and is currently principal guest conductor of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

Huang, who organized this program (it was repeated days later at SubCulture), grew up in Taiwan and England, and is now a viola professor at the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music. The pair began with the second movement of Shostakovich's Viola Sonata, a work completed just weeks before his death in 1975.

Huang observes that Shostakovich, like Brahms, who wrote two works for viola near the end of his life, was particularly drawn to the "humanity" of her instrument. "There is something to the humanity of being from within [the orchestra texture]," she noted. "You can lead from within but you don't have to draw attention to yourself. There's that aspect of the personality of the instrument that I feel I identify with very much."

In this clip, Solzhenitsyn speaks further about the "big questions" asked by Shostakovich, who suffered from the personal persecution of Stalin:

Huang and Solzhenitsyn met some 25 years ago, then teenaged students at the Marlboro Music Festival, and they have kept up their friendship and occasional musical partnership since. Both now wear multiple hats in their careers, with Solzhenitsyn also actively promoting the legacy of his father (who died in 2008), through readings, publishing and translations of his work. In the below video, he performs the second movement of Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 8 (1944).

"It's a work that is very scary – with a capital "s" – in its outer movements," the pianist said. "But this middle movement to me seems unrelated. To me it's kind of a respite from the terror of war but one that does not result in any succor, in any amelioration, in any resolution. It's just the sweet memory that is gone no sooner than it's spoken."

Video: Amy Pearl (camera) & Kim Nowacki (editing); Audio: Irene Trudel; Production & Interview: Brian Wise