Shostakovich’s Symphony No.7, the so-called Leningrad, will be remembered for posterity. But never has the Second World War been so vividly depicted in music as in the composer’s Symphony No.8. After the triumph of the Seventh in 1942, the Russian composer imagined a darker symphony in which the music would reflect the “terrible tragedy of war”. Possibly his most heartrending and powerful work ever, this mammoth symphonic fresco was condemned for its “decadent formalism” by Stalin’s authorities. A superlative work of indescribable orchestral colours!