Dmitri Schostakowitsch: Symphonie Nr.8

For Shostakovich's contemporaries, brought up in the spirit of Socialist Realism, it was clear that the Eighth Symphony had to have a programme and, more specifically, a topical reference to current events. And there could scarcely be anything more relevant than the decisive turning point in the Battle of Stalingrad. It is therefore hardly surprising that the symphony, composed in less than nine weeks between 2 July and 9 September 1943, was also referred to as "Stalingrad". Under pressure from the circumstances, Shostakovich had developed an aesthetic of the double bottom, the secret hidden meaning and the appalling irony, for which few equivalents are to be found in cultural history. This work also expresses the compulsion under which such a "system-compliant" musical language was created.