Shostakovich : Symphony No. 8

Album review

Following directly upon Shostakovich's triumphal and triumphant Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60 ("Leningrad"), the Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65, was a much more troublesome work. Even Prokofiev criticized it, while the Soviet government attempted to make the best of it by promoting it as a "Stalingrad symphony" in memoriam of the dead in that city. Certainly it is a gloomy work that poses immense challenges to the performers, and probably, for this reason, it is one of the less-often performed of the Shostakovich canon of 15. Conductor Tugan Sokhiev, leading the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, surmounts these challenges, even if he doesn't have the smooth strings and sharp-edged brass of, say, Bernard Haitink's Concertgebouw Orchestra. He may remind one of the work's originator, Evgeny Mravinsky, who also recorded the symphony and coaxed a half-hour ovation out of the audience. The Adagio of the 28-minute opening movement (slower than average here) is so long and takes up so much of the movement that it may be taken as an expression of how normal procedures no longer applied. Sokhiev brings out the long line and never flags even as the mood continually darkens. The emotionally complex finale is another strong point. The music never quite makes it to triumphant but manages a kind of lyricism, and contains one of Shostakovich's most beautiful melodies. This reading captures the tentative quality of the music, and even if there are greater displays of pure instrumental virtuosity among other recordings of the symphony, there are few that seem to embody so much reflection on what the music is about.

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