Dmitri Shostakovitch, Symphony No. 8

Anyone who really believes that "hope springs eternal …" ought to become a Seattle Mariners fan.

Or, if that's too painful, listen to Dmitri Shostakovitch's Symphony No. 8. From the first notes you can tell that this won't end with any sunny, upbeat "Ode to Joy"-type finale.

To be fair, Shostakovitch wrote his eighth symphony while

(a) in the middle of World War II; and 

(b) under the Stalin regime. 

So it's understandable that the mood here is rife with tension and palpable drama.

What I like about 20th-century composers is their ability to translate visceral emotion into musical scores. Maybe it's because I was brought up on Loony Tunes. But Shostakovitch does this brilliantly. The first movement starts out with dramatic tension that never lets up for its nearly 23 1/2 minutes. The pacing and tone, that sense of foreboding, lasts for pretty much the entire symphony.

The recording that I found is a gold label Everest recording from 1973. That's the year that U.S. troops began to withdraw from Vietnam, the Watergate hearings started and the Cold War continued to make us all feel we were going to get nuked into oblivion. (Sadly, "Rocky IV" wouldn't come out for another 12 years with its lesson that Americans and Russians could live in peace.) A badge on the front cover hails this as the "first American Recording" of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra performing Shostakovitch's Symphony No. 8.

I admit, I had hoped the liner notes, which are plentiful and in tiny type, would discuss the historic significance of the recording itself. But no. I guess in 1973, anything that said "Moscow" and was for sale in the United States must have been so obviously historic as to render further discussion unnecessary.

So we are left to simply appreciate the music for the historical context in which it was written, not in which the recording was made. That's OK. The Symphony No. 8 celebrates the triumph of the Red Army over the Nazis in World War II, but where Shostakovitch excels here is conveying the sense of devastation and wartime chaos.

What grabs me the most is the composer's use of the entire orchestra. When I first heard Brahms' first symphony, I was struck by the lack of percussion. No worries here. Everyone, including the tympanist, gets a workout. Symphony No. 8 uses brass, woodwinds, strings and bombastic drumbeats to set the mood and create the tense atmosphere that keeps your attention all the way through, even in the lengthy fourth movement:

Though the Soviets triumphed over the invading German Army (spoiler!), the Symphony No. 8 doesn't end with anything like a patriotic finale to celebrate the military victory. As I said in the beginning, Shostakovitch doesn't go for happy endings.


As a recording, the quality of this 37-year-old record holds up well. The dynamics are intact – important when you have such a bombastic piece – and the record surface, as you can hear, is more or less free of the pops and clicks that can get in the way of enjoying older recordings. For a buck, this was definitely worthwhile. You might be able to find it on CD, but the best I could do was an 11-disc set of the complete Shostakovitch symphonies conducted by Kiril Kondrashin, the man who conducted the Moscow Philharmonic on the 1973 Everest recording.

That may be overkill, but as Symphony No. 8 has taught me, sometimes there's no such thing.

In search of good autumn classical music

Well, that's it for summer. The temperature dropped, the skies turned gray and the time for wool socks has arrived.

Fall is here and I'm in need of some good classical music to get me in the mood. Besides the obvious -- "Autumn" in Vivvaldi's "Four Seasons" -- anyone have any suggestions?

For starters, this guitar adaptation of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" makes for good rainy day weather. But that's all I have for ideas. Let's discuss.

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REVIEW: 'Bach and Friends' on DVD

It may be suicidal to say this, but if you want to learn about composers, ask a musician, not a music critic. Often people who make music can talk about it in ways that nonmusicians can understand without resorting to jargon.

That's what makes "Bach and Friends," a two-hour documentary by Michael Lawrence, so enjoyable. The film explores the life and works of Johann Sebastian Bach not through the eyes of historians and academics, but from the perspective of musicians who play his works. Through the nearly two hours of interviews and performances Lawrence hammers home a consistent theme: Bach is important because his music is fun.

Well-known names in the classical world figure prominently in the documentary: Manuel Barrueco, Phillip Glass, the Emerson String Quartet. Lawrence also spoke to musicians who made their names outside the classical world, including bluegrass legend Bela Fleck, bassist Edgar Meyer and ukelele player Jake Shimabukuro.

But this is not a documentary for musicians. Lawrence makes the case that Bach's music is universal – literally, if you consider that the composer's recordings are on the Voyager spaceship that is right now hurtling through the galaxy. The people interviewed talk about Bach's music and life in a way that makes the composer grounded and, more importantly, accessible. That's demonstrated in interviews with Fleck and Chris Thile, the mandolin player and former lead singer of Nickel Creek. They argue that folk musicians have embraced Bach's music recently. Thile says he gets the biggest audience reaction when he throws some Bach into his concerts.

Even at two hours, Lawrence doesn't tell the complete picture. Musically, the film focuses on Bach's pieces for specific instruments – organ, cello, clarinet – and his famous works like the Goldberg Variations, the Chaconne and his many, many fugues. Bach's choral works and his church music, such as the Mass in B Minor are noticeably absent.

But that's a minor shortcoming of an otherwise well-produced documentary. "Bach and Friends" succeeds at not only telling why Bach is still beloved, but also showing it.

Check out the trailer for the film below. You can contact Michael Lawrence here.