Tragedy and Triumph: Shostakovich Symphony No. 8

January 25th at 2:00 P.M.

Rafael Payare, conductor
San Diego Symphony Orchestra

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65

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Beethoven's explosively exhilarating First Symphony was written in the very last years of the 18th century, when Napoleon was first seizing control of France and setting out to conquer Austria and Italy. The music breathes the air of earth-shaking public events and an intense optimism for the future. Shostakovich composed his colossal Eighth Symphony in the depths of World War II, when the Battle of Stalingrad was raging and the future of the entire world at stake. This wildly dramatic, almost cinematic, music traverses every kind of human feeling from the dark tragedy and struggle of the first movement, through bitter satire and brutal human conflict to despair and finally a vision of a new world of transcendent beauty.