Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8

What are you going to listen to?

Roukens

The world of music has changed tremendously in the Last decades. Music in all forms and performances are available at the click of a mouse. This "polystylism" has formed the DNA of Dutch composer Joey Roukens. This is evident in his 2021 First Symphony, which he nicknamed the "kaleidoscopic. Roukens himself described the original third movement Night Flight as depicting "a kind of nocturnal roller coaster ride over a busy city." The music is dark in tone, but at the same time colorful with grotesque, carnivalesque elements and tremendous drive.

Bloch

Originally from Switzerland, composer Ernest Bloch left for the United States in 1916 where he worked as a teacher. The Last compositions before his migration have been called his "Jewish cycle. In the years before World War I, Jewish identity in art experienced a renaissance and was given a face in works of art such as those by Chagall and Bloch. Among the works Bloch wrote during this period were Trois poèmes juifs, his Israel Symphony, Suite hébraïque, Two Psalms and his Hebrew rhapsody for cello and orchestra, entitled Schelomo. The title refers to the Jewish King Solomon, known for his unprecedented wealth and wisdom and traditionally represented as the author of the Bible book of Ecclesiastes. "Air and emptiness, everything is emptiness (...) I have seen everything that happens under the sun, and determined that it is no more than air and chasing wind." These unpromising words struck Bloch during the war years when it became clear once again that the world had learned nothing from history.

Originally Bloch wanted to provide his music with a sung text, but due to his poor knowledge of Hebrew, he chose the cello. With a voice fluent in all languages, this instrument interprets the wise words of King Solomon. Sometimes lilting, sometimes declamatory like a chazan, he enters into dialogue with the world around him. At the climax, we hear the theme of a Jewish ram's horn announcing an alternative philosophy of dreams and visions. The concluding lament full of oriental colors and the cello dissolving into a devout silence suggest that humanity is not yet ready to fathom Solomon's message of peace.

Shostakovich

The emotions released by the pain of war can also be heard in the work of Dmitri Shostakovich. His life was marked by the Russian revolution, Stalin's reign of terror and the war with Nazi Germany. The then Leningrad, where the composer lived, was heavily bombed during 1941-1944. Food was hard to come by during the siege, and during the terribly cold winters, residents were sometimes left freezing to death on the streets for days. Shostakovich was deeply affected by the misery and would have preferred to fight at the front, but his poor eyesight made that not an option. He joined the volunteer fire department. Hope among the population was nourished by music. The symphony orchestra continued to play, even though weakened musicians fell dead from their seats. In 1942, when Shostakovich had now been evacuated to Kujbyshev, the premiere of his first war symphony, the Seventh, sounded live on all radios in besieged Leningrad. The symphony was received as a patriotic heroic act.

In the summer of 1943, while the war continued, Shostakovich had the opportunity to compose in relative peace at a remote country retreat. The music for his Eighth Symphony he had already more or less finished in his head, and in barely two months he put the music to paper. The monumental work of over an hour in five movements the composer saw as a requiem for the millions of war dead.

In a gigantic arc of tension, the music depicts pain, emptiness, bitterness and fear. The scherzo-like middle sections are anything but funny. Above the restless machinery of an ostinato theme, you can hear rockets and grenades striking. In the Largo, the listener seems to look deep into the composer's soul. A bass line draws a continuously repeated passacaglia, each repetition revealing a little more of its secrets. Is this just the pain of war against Nazism? Or does the music also say something about the fear and helplessness under Stalin's terror? On the way to the low point, a glimmer of hope does seem to appear in a modulation from c minor to C major. But as in Beethoven's Fate Symphony, or Mahler's Auferstehungs Symphony, Shostakovich did not foresee an optimistic ending. "If you had known how much blood this C major cost me...," sighed the composer.

The symphony was successfully received by the public and several performances followed. But the tide would soon turn. When the war was over, Culture Minister Zhdanov set about with renewed energy to purge writers, filmmakers and composers of any possible critical expression on the regime. During a three-day hearing, Shostakovich's Eighth was banned and it would be decades before it was allowed to sound again.

Frans Boendermaker