Composed through the war-torn summer time of 1943, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8 in C minor makes an attempt to take a journey from tragedy to triumph. It’s the similar C minor to C main trajectory we encounter in Beethoven’s Fifth, Brahms’ First, Bruckner’s Eighth, and Mahler’s Second. But for a lot of listeners, the victory feels hole. Maybe there’s even a touch of sarcasm.
Shostakovich described his Seventh and Eighth Symphonies as “requiems,” written amid terror and suppression. Within the phrases of the composer, the Second World Warfare descended on the Soviet Union as “a horrible extermination machine.”
We explored the Eighth Symphony in a previous post. Now, let’s return to this music and hearken to a live performance efficiency, recorded on Could 9, 2025, that includes French-Armenian conductor Alain Altinoglu and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. Altinoglu and the ensemble are at the moment within the means of recording all 15 of Shostakovich’s Symphonies.
