SHOSTAKOVICH- EIGHTH SYMPHONY IN C MINOR: RSNO (Caird Hall, Dundee: 3rd April, 2025)

Conducted by Jonathon Hayward with a full orchestra the RSNO did us proud with as good a rendition of Shostakovich’s Eighth as I have heard. The tsunamis of sound I refer to below were perfectly executed and the overall performance left one feeling exulted and drained in equal fashion – it is demanding, the first movement was shorter than other versions I have heard, the last was longer, totalling around 65 minutes, pretty much a standard length. For the background which I am sure any music lover will find of interest see below:

Written between 1st July and 9th September, 1943, one critic said that Shostakovich had blown a fuse in an ‘earthbound’ symphony lacking the ‘vital electricity’ that set him apart from his contemporaries. Brian Morton, in his erudite book about Shostakovich stated that the composer’s son Maxim turned the symphony into a “dark personal odyssey”. The context in which it was written during a crucial wartime period seemingly offered the symphony an escape route from the censors and the wrath of Stalin: I quote from the notes to the Supraphon Prague Symphony Orchestra box set of symphonies conducted by Shostakovich’s son: “It was possible to depict grief and destruction, because the Germans were responsible for it. In peacetime, art was required to produce cloudless optimism, and in those circumstances Shostakovich’s ‘requiem’ would very certainly have been subject to crushing criticism.”

Shostakovich’s seventh in C major had been a great critical success but the “more complicated and abstract” eighth was subjected to a ‘sting in the tail’ from the Kremlin cultural hawks, questioning how Shostakovich could write an optimistic symphony at the start of the war and a tragic one now that the Russians were fighting against and defeating the fascist Nazis; ergo the symphony must be considered countercultural.

As for the music itself, and the first movement (adagio- allegro non troppo – adagio) after a period of nervy scene setting, a beguiling and nostalgic as well as brooding melody emerges, after around six minutes in Maxim’s interpretation and a minute sooner in the version by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mariss Jansons (similarities have been noted with Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony). ‘Robust’ violins play over ‘a steady string pulse’ (Morton) with violas and cor anglais. A dominant crescendo appears around 12:30 with heavy percussion reiterating previous melodies more vibrantly followed by tsunami waves of drum rolls (Morton suggests “a militaristic drum beat”) and brass giving way to strings around the 18-minute mark with a lone plaintive cor anglais joined by soft strings in a wistful passage around 21 minutes. Comparing my impressions with those of Brian Morton he speaks of a “dynamic gamut from a near-inaudible pppp at the start of the violin melody to a stunning ffff. The woodwinds bleat ominously, while, distantly the horns and cellos sound warnings of disaster. A heavy-footed march follows, and it is hard not picture the trumpets and glockenspiels of Nazi bands at Nuremberg.”

All is quiet as brass and strings provide a doleful echo in variations of what has gone before. After 27 minutes the second movement (allegretto according to the EMI Classics edition and scherzo according to Morton) stridently begins with a conversation between the woodwinds, strings and percussion, my favourite part of the symphony so far, with refrains that stick in your head. A sole woodwind is embellished by a frenzied passage with crashing cymbals before the woodwinds bring calm once again. We are now six and a half minutes in. Morton’s analysis is that this movement may be satirical in a “general attack on extremism of thought and the failure of intellectualism”, hence the ‘scherzo’ assignation.

The third movement (allegro non troppo) starts with strings and some restless interplay involving brass and percussion (listen out for the high-pitched trumpet calls), memorably technicolour and filmic with military allegory perhaps (the success of the Russian army?) – ah, but then doubts are arisen in the parping brass and ascending and descending strings; it almost sounds like a retreat: thundering kettle drums suggest another charge, drum rolls and thumps like bombs falling (or shell bursts) – artillery fire (Morton suggests machine guns) perhaps as we quickly enter the fourth movement, a ten minute long largo (a sea of tranquillity) which segues quietly into the fifth movement (allegretto) with a playful kind of ‘forest folk’ passage and a parping bassoon melody, violins, a solitary flute, cellos and oboes. Of the third movement Morton says “It is almost certain that the sound effects and battering ostinatos of the E-minor third movement are intended to suggest military conflict”. There is a heavy suggestion of defeatism rather than optimism in the symphony. The pathos the violin at the symphony’s denouement speaks volumes.

Brian Morton’s selections of essential recordings are Bernard Haitink’s and Mravinsky’s. His summation of a symphony that has divided opinion is that it is “dominated by a huge adagio opening movement, but the architectural balance of the symphony is achieved by playing the last three movements without a break” (a device also used in his Ninth symphony and string quartets) On a technical note, apparently the strings bow ‘sul tasto’ or above the fingerboard, “a sound that bleaches the sound-colour”.

For reference:

Adagio and Largo = slow

Allegro = Cheerful or brisk; but commonly interpreted as lively, fast

Allegro non troppo = semi-fast

Allegretto = A little lively, moderately fast

Scherzo = A light, "joking" or playful musical form