Shostakovich Symphony no 8

 Day 35

Shostakovich Symphony no 8 in c minor op 65

WDR Sinfonieorchestra

Rudolf Barshai

Over the years I have listened to about half of the Shostakovich symphonies. Nos 1 and 10 were in my early LP collection and I head the first broadcast performance of no 15 on the radio - I remember the announcer being very coy about not revealing the musical quotations which the piece unexpectedly contained.  I've played symphonies no 5 and 10 and a couple of the concertos but I can't say that I have ever gone into a deep exploration of his output.

I'd never heard the 8th symphony before yet time and time again it seemed familiar. That is because it contains all of the tropes (cliches if you wanted to be more frank), associated with the composer. So we had lots of screamingly high woodwind writing (E flat clarinet to the fore), plenty of side drum and xylophone, gently pulsating string accompaniments to a wind solo, ostinato figures which went on for pages and a long ending on a sustain chord with various murmurings in the orchestra. I know it is probably sacrilegious to say so but at times this did seem as if Shostakovich was painting by numbers out of his well worn palette. 

Formally the piece is odd. A very long first movement in an arch structure and then three shorter movements before a longer finale. I have to say that I couldn't make head nor tail of what the composer was trying to do in that finale - the material seemed extremely commonplace and disjointed. But writers who I admire rate this symphony very highly and I am sure that I am missing something. As ever with Shostakovich you never quite know what level to take the music - how many layers of meaning are there below the surface - perhaps the composer himself didn't know. 

So quite a frustrating piece for me. All sorts of moments of interest along the way - the fluter tonguing effect for 4 flutes at one point certainly took me by surprise - and as a bassoon and contra player I certainly enjoyed seeing the challenges that Shostakovich set for the instruments. But as a musical experience I am afraid that this symphony rather passed me by.