Symphony No. 10

According to later remarks by the composer, Symphony No. 10 is a depiction of the Stalin era. The dictator died in May 1953 and the symphony premiered nine months later.

It commences with a long, dramatic movement, unmistakably Shostakovichian in nature, with tones, twists and turns easily recognisable from the composer’s earlier works. The second movement is a musical portrait of Stalin himself; “inexorable, merciless, like an evil whirlwind”, as musicologist Solomon Volkov puts it in the foreword to the composer’s memoir, Testimony.

In the third movement, Shostakovich crafts an eerie melody based the letters of his name in its German transliteration, DSCH: D, E flat, C, B natural, or in German musical notation D, Es, C, H. This combination of notes recurs in many of Shostakovich’s works, including Symphony No. 8 (1943). A second musical cryptogram occurs a third of the way into the third movement, this time based on the name Elmira, a student with whom the composer was in love. This motif is played by the horn as an uncertain cry into the void. The final movement begins slowly, tentatively, but concludes in thunderous, crashing triumph.