<\/p>
Dmitri Shostakovich wrote 15 symphonies, spanning his entire creative life from when he was a teenage student at the Petrograd (now St Petersburg) Conservatory to not long before his death in the 1970s, by which point he was internationally renowned. <\/strong><\/p>\n Most of the Soviet composer\u2019s symphonies were about \u2018the endless battle between good and evil,\u2019 the composer\u2019s son Maxim told\u00a0The Times<\/em>; Shostakovich\u2019s life under a communist regime was inextricably tied to his artistic output.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Here is my run-down of Shostakovich\u2019s top seven symphonies.<\/p>\n In seventh place is his first symphony.<\/strong> Where better to start this list than at the very beginning? Perhaps it\u2019s provocative to place Shostakovich\u2019s earliest symphony, written when he was just 19, above the eight other symphonies omitted from this list. But the first three symphonies tend to be overlooked \u2013 and the First is more than worth a listen, even if it\u2019s later on that Shostakovich hits his symphonic stride. After its public premiere in 1926, a few years after it was written, this was the piece that put the young Soviet composer on the international map, with conductors taking it into their repertoire.<\/p>\n Shostakovich\u2019s sixth symphony is in sixth place.\u00a0<\/strong> The Fifth is regularly described as Shostakovich\u2019s most popular symphony. After the the official damning of his successful opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk<\/em>, denounced in a Pravda article titled \u2018muddle instead of music\u2019, Shostakovich needed to write something to please the Soviet authorities. The result was Symphony No. 5, his \u2018practical creative answer of a Soviet artist to just criticism\u2019. Yet if the finale outwardly purports to offer triumph and celebration at the conclusion, there\u2019s more than enough ambiguity for it to be heard as a hollow victory. The relentless repetitions of the note \u2018A\u2019 in the strings tell a quite different story. It is, Shostakovich reportedly said, \u2018as if someone is beating you with a stick and saying your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing.\u2019<\/p>\n In fifth place is Symphony No. 13. <\/strong>There\u2019s no ambiguity in this symphony, which begins with a denunciation of anti-Semitism and Soviet indifference, with the first of five poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The \u2018Babi Yar\u2019 Adagio<\/em> gives the symphony its sobriquet, referring to the site where Nazis massacred Jews in 1941, and which was left without a memorial by the Russians. A fleet-footed satirical\u00a0Allegretto<\/em>\u00a0mocks dictators who think they can stifle humour, followed by an\u00a0Adagio<\/em>\u00a0that laments and pays tribute to the lot of women. Fear seeped into every corner of life in the Soviet Union, and it\u2019s the subject of the\u00a0Largo<\/em>, before a finale that honours those who sacrificed their careers to maintain their integrity. Set for bass soloist, men\u2019s chorus and a large orchestra, the Thirteenth is a courageous act of creative defiance that still resonates today.<\/p>\n Symphony No. 4 is in fourth place. <\/strong>This daring three-movement symphony is, says, the Grove Dictionary of Music, a \u2018colossal synthesis of Shostakovich\u2019s musical development to date\u2019 \u2013\u00a0including his first three symphonies. The 29-year-old composer had nearly completed the piece, in 1936, when the critical\u00a0Pravda<\/em>\u00a0article came out (see \u2018Symphony No. 5\u2019) but he decided not to change a note of the Fourth in response \u2013\u00a0even though it fell far from the demands of Socialist Realism. Yet at some point during the rehearsal process, the premiere was cancelled, perhaps as a result of pressure from the authorities. It wasn\u2019t until 1961, in the decade after Stalin\u2019s death, that the piece was heard in public. The ghost of Mahler is heard in its musical style and vast canvas (125 musicians) \u2013 and for all its dense strangeness, this symphony has risen in the public opinion since its premiere.<\/p>\n In third place is Symphony No. 15. <\/strong>If all of Shostakovich\u2019s symphonies have their bleak moments, the Fifteenth\u2019s brand of bleakness is, well, the bleakest of all. This strange symphony skitters on the edge of absurdity and irony, its quotes from Rossini and Wagner inexplicable yet brilliant; its spare orchestration often unexpected yet always just right. Film-maker David Lynch said he was inspired by Symphony No. 15 when he made his film Blue Velvet<\/em>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0if you want an idea of just how weird, enigmatic and wonderful this piece is. Listen, question, just don\u2019t expect any answers.<\/p>\n Symphony No. 8 is in second place.\u00a0<\/strong>The Eighth was, for pianist Sviatoslav Richter \u2018the most important work\u2019 by Shostakovich. The composer wrote the symphony in 1943, not long after the success of his Seventh \u2018Leningrad\u2019 Symphony, and under pressure to reflect the official triumphant mood after Soviet military gains over the Nazis. Shostakovich said in an interview that, \u2018on the whole, it is an optimistic life-affirming work\u2019, and the five movements do trace a journey from C minor to C major. But for many listeners, the music\u2019s general demeanour suggests that his statement shouldn\u2019t be taken at face value. Within this symphony is all the suffering, trauma and loss of war. If it ends in hope, it is only that somehow, afterwards, there are some survivors clinging on to the possibility of life.<\/p>\n And the winner is the Symphony No. 10. <\/strong>Of all the symphonies, it\u2019s the Tenth that packs the surest punch, seeming to speak both of the private and public, of torment and tyrants. It opens with a long Moderato<\/em>, almost half the entire piece, that dances a slow waltz, tracing desolation, desperation, and deep weariness of the soul. \u2018Structurally it is the most perfect single orchestral movement [Shostakovich] ever wrote,\u2019 said conductor Mark Wigglesworth. It\u2019s followed by a ferocious, fortissimo\u00a0Allegro<\/em>\u00a0that, according to the (contested) book\u00a0Testimony<\/em>, was Shostakovich\u2019s portrait of Stalin. Whatever the truth, the sheer rage unleashed in this music speaks volumes.<\/p>\n Shostakovich called the third movement a \u2018nocturne\u2019, but in fact it is another waltz, one filled with codes. Not only is the composer\u2019s musical monogram \u2013\u00a0DSCH \u2013\u00a0stamped all over it, but a haunting horn call traces the so-called \u2018Elmira\u2019 motto, signifying a student with whom Shostakovich had fallen in love. The finale begins with slow, chilling music; it ends with a defiant statement of the DSCH motto and whirling energy. The Tenth Symphony was premiered on 17 December 1953; Stalin had died in March that year.<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Rebecca Franks Published: Friday, 02 September 2022 at 12:00 am Dmitri Shostakovich wrote 15 symphonies, spanning his entire creative life from when he was a teenage student at the Petrograd (now St Petersburg) Conservatory to not long before his death in the 1970s, by which point he was internationally renowned. Most of the Soviet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":19378,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"5"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/which-is-shostakovichs-best-symphony.jpg",200,200,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/which-is-shostakovichs-best-symphony-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/which-is-shostakovichs-best-symphony.jpg",200,200,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/which-is-shostakovichs-best-symphony.jpg",200,200,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/which-is-shostakovichs-best-symphony.jpg",200,200,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/which-is-shostakovichs-best-symphony.jpg",200,200,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/09\/which-is-shostakovichs-best-symphony.jpg",200,200,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Rebecca Franks Published: Friday, 02 September 2022 at 12:00 am Dmitri Shostakovich wrote 15 symphonies, spanning his entire creative life from when he was a teenage student at the Petrograd (now St Petersburg) Conservatory to not long before his death in the 1970s, by which point he was internationally renowned. Most of the Soviet…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/19377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The best Shostakovich symphonies<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u00a0Symphony No. 1<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\u00a0Symphony No. 5<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Symphony No. 13<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Symphony No. 4<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Symphony No. 15<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Symphony No. 8<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Symphony No. 10<\/strong><\/h3>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"