Symphony No. 8 (Shostakovich) - Movements

Movements

The work is only slightly shorter than the composer's monumental Seventh Symphony, and consists of five movements:

1. Adagio - Allegro non troppo
2. Allegretto
3. Allegro non troppo -
4. Largo -
5. Allegretto

The first movement, which runs roughly half an hour, is by far the longest. It opens with a dramatic motif played fortissimo in octaves, characterised by David Haas in his study as a "fate" motif:

However, the motif is immediately replaced by the two subjects of this sonata form movement, both lyrical in character. In the development section, the second subject is brutalised before militaristic marches come to dominate. The recapitulation sees a dissonant version of the fate motif displaced by a cor anglais solo which meanders towards a restatement of the second subject.

The composer described the short second movement allegretto as "a march with elements of a scherzo"; the third movement (conventionally described as a toccata) is again short, driven onwards by motor rhythms:

This movement has been interpreted as a depiction of battle, or (by Kurt Sanderling) as "the crushing of the individual" by the Soviet system. It is linked to the penultimate movement, a passacaglia, which in turn (as in Beethoven's fifth) leads directly into the C major finale, around 15 minutes in length. However in contrast to Beethoven's exuberant conclusion, Shostakovich provides a pastoral rondo in which solo woodwinds again dominate. The movement begins with a passage for solo bassoon, and ends quietly with both pizzicato and sustaining strings; for some additional color, a solo flute joins in for the last note of the motive, at the very bottom of its range. The pizzicato material is an inverted version of the symphony's opening fate motif, and is connected by Haas to a similar passage for soprano voice in the fifth movement of Mahler's Second. Here, however, there is no resurrection: "The hero who announced himself using the voices of cor anglais and bassoon has not clearly triumphed, merely survived".

The weight of the first and final movements of the symphony is centered on simultaneous crescendos of the snare and bass drums, while trumpets call to the pinnacle which is overlayed by woodwind trills.

A second interval is used as a motif throughout the symphony: C B-flat C in the opening motif of the first movement, D-flat C D-flat in the theme of the second movement, E F E in the third movement (here separated by an octave), and C D C in the last movement.