Shostakovich's Symphony No.8

The BBC Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Hannu Lintu in Shostakovich's shattering WW2 work - his Symphony No.8. Plus Schnittke's Viola Concerto with soloist Timothy Ridout.

Recorded at the Barbican Hall, London. Presented by Martin Handley.

Schnittke: Viola Concerto
Interval
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 in C Minor

Timothy Ridout (viola)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Hannu Lintu (conductor)

A gripping all-Russian programme from BBC Symphony Orchestra. It’s a bitter irony, but bad politics sometimes produce great art. Shostakovich wrote his Eighth Symphony at the height of the Second World War, and every bar of this colossal work resounds with violent struggle. Schnittke’s Viola Concerto was born in the dying days of the Soviet Union: a voice of sorrow, mischief and subversion beneath the grey skies of the Cold War.

These two masterpieces are two pages of the same twentieth century story – dissident masters, speaking truth to power in a time when the wrong notes (like the wrong opinions) carried a brutal price. Together, they add up to a formidable programme from guest conductor Hannu Lintu, with the “terrifically talented” (The Times) Timothy Ridout bringing both poetry and passion to Schnittke’s remarkable concerto.