The dirtiest little secret in 20th-century classical music has to be the preponderance of anti-Semitism among many of its most famous performers and composers. But what has never been fully explored is the opposite phenomenon, the courageous philo-Semitism of men who risked running afoul of totalitarian governments in order to assist their fellow musicians. In Germany, the names of Adolf Busch and Paul Hindemith come readily to mind, as well as the more controversial but ultimately more influential Wilhelm Furtwaengler. But in Russia, the Raoul Wallenberg award should go to the memory of Dmitri Shostakovich. On Sunday afternoon at Avery Fisher Hall, Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra presented two examples of this unique composer’s bravery.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg, or Moisei Vainberg, was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1919. He studied piano at the conservatory in Minsk, Belarus, and then, in a decision that probably saved his life moved to Samarkand. There, in what is now Uzbekistan, he first met Shostakovich. Back in Europe, Weinberg’s parents were killed by the Nazis but he survived, only to face death when Stalin arrested him in February 1953 for being married to a relative of a Jewish doctor erroneously accused in a plot to assassinate the dictator. Shostakovich intervened on his behalf and he avoided the ultimate sentence. It was instead Stalin who died soon thereafter and Weinberg was released.

Mr. Botstein offered his Symphony No. 6 — Weinberg composed more than 25 — in a thrilling performance. The work is in five movements; all are interesting, but the three that employ a children’s chorus are particularly moving. On hand were the members of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy, expertly trained by Dianne Berkun to navigate some very difficult passages, and in Russian to boot. There were some justifiably proud parents in the audience.

Concertmaster Erica Kiesewetter produced some lovely sounds as the soloist in “The Little Fiddle,” in which the innocent voices of the children mesh perfectly with the fairy tale milieu. But this is a setup by Weinberg, as the next number for the children is the horrifying “In the Red Clay There Is a Hole,” a description of children slaughtered by the fascists. This combination of sweetness and inhumanity is almost unbearable, but the steady hand of the conductor kept things in check. The orchestra sounded great —suitably gritty and muscular as appropriate, but able to soften to a poignant lushness.

Also on the program was the Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra from 1967. This is a novelty piece that helped bridge the gap between Weinberg the serious composer and Weinberg the cinema and circus tunesmith. Principal trumpet Carl Albach was superb in this idiosyncratic bagatelle, a collection of fits and starts, ruffles and flourishes. Perhaps the most exciting movement is the final “Fanfares,” wherein Weinberg quotes from Mahler, Mendelssohn, Bizet, Rimski-Korsakov, and Stravinsky. The protégé is paying homage to the master; Shostakovich had used a similar technique in his final Symphony No. 15.

Besides composing “From Jewish Folk Poetry” at the height of Stalin’s anti-Semitism, Shostakovich pushed the envelope with Khrushchev as well. Although the Germans massacred over 30,000 Jews in two days at the ravine of Babi Yar near Kiev, Ukraine, it was not this outrage to which the composer and poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko were reacting. Rather, it was the refusal of the Soviet Union to acknowledge the incident and to memorialize it. In 1962, both men became personae non grata with the premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13.

With commanding bass soloist Sergei Leiferkus and the bassos of the Concert Chorale of New York, the American Symphony presented a powerful rendition of this great work. Especially notable were the solid chorale sounds of the brass section, the precision of the strings, and the exciting pacing from the podium. Mr. Leiferkus was strong and poetic, although I wished for a little more accenting of some of his more guttural syllables. The men of the chorus created a suitably primeval and brutal atmosphere, what Yevtushenko describes as “smelling of vodka and onions.” The days are long gone when we used to describe the ASO merely as important. Now it is just fabulous.