This work has for a
number of years been thought of as an
out-and-out War Symphony; a composer’s
reaction to the atrocities suffered
by the Russian people during the Second
World War. The consequences were 27
million dead, with thousands more injured
and maimed.
Latest research in
the former Soviet Union shows that far
from being a brilliant military strategist,
Stalin was duped by Hitler into delaying
the mobilisation of his forces so that
the casualties were greater than they
would otherwise have been. Following
these losses, the atrocities carried
out by Stalin on his own people were
even harsher than those perpetrated
by Hitler. So as well as being a contemplation
of the horrors of war, this symphony
is also perhaps more a contemplation
of the horrors of Stalin. The programmatic
content of Symphonies 10 and 11 go some
way to supporting this view.
Shostakovich’s contemporary
comments on his work are worth reproducing
here.
"I’ve heard
so much nonsense about the Seventh
and Eighth Symphonies……Everything
that was written about those symphonies
in the first few days is repeated
without changes to this very day,
even though there has been time to
do some thinking. . . . Thirty years
ago you could say that they were military
symphonies, but symphonies are rarely
written to order, that is, if they
are worthy to be called symphonies
. . . . The majority of my symphonies
are tombstones. . . . Too many of
our people have died. . . . And later
all the misery was put down to the
war, as though it was only during
the war that people were tortured
and killed. Thus the Seventh and Eighth
are "war symphonies."
"They said,
‘Why did Shostakovich write an optimistic
symphony at the beginning of the war
and a tragic one now?’ At the beginning
of the war we were retreating and
now attacking, destroying the Fascists.
And Shostakovich is acting tragic,
that means on the side of the Fascists.
"The success
of the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies
was like a knife in the throat for
Khrennikov and company. They thought
that I was blocking their light, grabbing
up all the fame and leaving none for
them. It turned into a nasty story.
The leader and teacher wanted to teach
me a lesson and my fellow composers
wanted to destroy me. And every report
of the success of the Seventh or Eighth
made me ill. A new success meant a
coffin nail."
Symphony No.8 is in
five movements, the last three joined
to form a continuous structure. There
is a longish first movement, tragic
in nature, which has a passage of extreme
violence in the middle. There is then
a violent scherzo, fairly short, which
prepares us for the drama of the remainder
of the work. The first section of the
three movement final part, takes the
form of a motoric scherzo and then follow
two slow sections depicting reconciliation
of the human soul. In the hands of a
Mravinsky, these last two movements
can be a harrowing experience, but here,
although the standard of playing of
the Atlanta Orchestra is superb, it
is all a bit too comfortable to bring
out the real pathos of the symphony.
Still, with Telarc’s
superb sound and the Orchestra’s excellent
playing, this is an issue which will
give hi-fi enthusiasts much pleasure,
although in the end, Mravinsky or Kondrashin
will be more fulfilling.
John Phillips
Symphony No.8, Op. 65 (1943) [64.14]
