BBC Symphony Orchestra: Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts Shostakovich Symphony No. 8

BBC Symphony Orchestra: Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts Shostakovich Symphony No. 8

Friday, 24 January 2020, 7.30pm

On 4 November 1943, a war-fatigued audience in Moscow heard the first performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony. Unlike its predecessor, this was no rallying call-to-arms. It was masterpiece of despair, grotesquery and anger powered forward by music both grief-stricken in stillness and hurtling in paranoia. The piece was banned immediately.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts Shostakovich’s denunciation of the futility of war alongside the lustrous songs by Alma Mahler with mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill. A UK premiere by Sebastian Fagerlund – a composer shepherding Finnish orchestral music into a thrilling new era – is the climax to a monumental, awe-inspiring trilogy of orchestral works.

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Published by The Journal of Music on 20 January 2020

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