‘A Soviet artist’s response to just criticism’: that is the subtitle Shostakovich gave this symphony. But everything about the work is ambiguous: order becomes restlessness, joy is stifled, the harmony suddenly turns shrill. The regime didn’t realise any of this, and yet Shostakovich managed to express the oppression of his people through the music.
From the very first bars, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony grabs you by the throat. Through piercing strings, epic timpani, and ironically cheerful brass the composer wrestles with his position under dictator Stalin.
