writings
Odes to Freedom: On Shostakovich Symphony Nos. 9 & 12
Since Beethoven, every composer embarking on his ninth symphony has felt under pressure trying to cope with a public’s heightened expectation of the work. In Shostakovich’s case that burden was particularly hard to bear. He had portrayed such suffering in his previous two war symphonies that it was widely assumed, given the imminent defeat of Hitler, that a trilogy of these pieces would be completed with a victory composition of appropriately epic and triumphant proportions.
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