Genuinely Hard-won

MIKE WHEELER listens to
Nicholas Collon and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
playing Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony,
preceded by Stephen Johnson's illustrated introduction

With Nicholas Collon conducting the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, writer and broadcaster Stephen Johnson returned to Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall (Nottingham, UK, 11 January 2017) for another of his always enlightening illustrated introductions to a major work — on this occasion, Shostakovich's Symphony No 8. Written in 1943, it is a darker counterweight to the self-evident rallying cry of its predecessor, the Seventh, 'Leningrad', Symphony.

Foregrounding what he called the 'splendid, arresting start', Johnson pointed out the way its basic constituent intervals recur in so much of the work's later material, emphasising its balanced, well-judged, economical construction...

BBC PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

NOTTINGHAM ROYAL CONCERT HALL

NOTTINGHAM

ENGLAND