Shostakovich: Symphonies 8-10 Berliner Philharmoniker & Kirill Petrenko

• Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975): Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 65:
• 1 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 65: I. Adagio – Allegro non troppo 25:12
• 2 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 65: II. Allegretto 06:10
• 3 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 65: III. Allegro non troppo 06:00
• 4 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 65: IV. Largo 09:55
• 5 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 65: V. Allegretto 13:39
• Symphony No. 9 in E-Flat Major, Op. 70:
• 6 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 in E-Flat Major, Op. 70: I. Allegro 05:10
• 7 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 in E-Flat Major, Op. 70: II. Moderato 07:19
• 8 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 in E-Flat Major, Op. 70: III. Presto 02:43
• 9 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 in E-Flat Major, Op. 70: IV. Largo 04:18
• 10 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 in E-Flat Major, Op. 70: V. Allegretto 06:30
• Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Op. 93:
• 11 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Op. 93: I. Moderato 23:11
• 12 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Op. 93: II. Allegro 04:07
• 13 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Op. 93: III. Allegretto 11:49
• 14 Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Op. 93: IV. Andante - Allegro 11:57
• Total Runtime 02:18:00

Info for Shostakovich: Symphonies 8-10

The Berlin Philharmonic and its principal conductor Kirill Petrenko have made creative use of the Corona crisis: First without an audience, then with reduced attendance and finally again in front of a sold-out house, they performed Shostakovich's Symphonies 8, 9 and 10 - and have now released them on their own label. In his foreword, Petrenko chalks up this situation as an opportunity: "Paradoxical as it may sound, performing these three symphonies in a phase of extensive isolation opened up a new level of understanding of this music for me personally." A lasting listening experience.

Dmitri Shostakovich starts his Eighth Symphony with sombre string cantilenas in an Adagio tone - here the cellos and basses of the Berliner Philharmoniker can already bring their dark, rich sound to bear. With great breath, Kirill Petrenko spans wide arcs in these funeral songs, stretching time to the suggestion of infinity. However, this five-movement monstrosity in no way glorifies the victory at Stalingrad in 1943, as Stalin and his henchmen expected of Shostakovich. On the contrary: with a garish circus atmosphere, the composer thumb his nose at the dictator.

Kirill Petrenko describes Dmitri Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony as an "incredible drama of the soul". The composer wrote it during the Second World War at the risk of his life: between threatened existence and Stalinist censorship. The Ninth and Tenth also bear vivid witness to Shostakovich's confrontation with the regime - and his self-assertion. Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings now releases the recordings of Symphonies 8-10 as the orchestra's second major hardcover edition with principal conductor Kirill Petrenko.

Musically, each of the three symphonies is a world of its own - what unites them is the desire for freedom: once whispered behind closed hands, once ironically distorted, once shouted out. Shostakovich's Eighth delivered a forced smiling tragedy to the authority greedy for patriotic hymns. And despite all the camouflage, the work was banned a few years later. With his Ninth Symphony, the composer then made a surprising about-face, so that he had to remain silent as a symphonist until after Stalin's death - in order to survive himself. Not only the tradition-heavy numbering of the Ninth, but also the fact that the war had been won led the people and officials of the Soviet Union to hope for a gigantic heroic celebration. Instead of redemption at the end of the war, Shostakovich saw the countless victims - and the approach of the next catastrophe. In the distancing tone of Viennese classicism and with grotesque cheerfulness, his Ninth therefore depicts a circus world that held up a distorting mirror to the regime.

The Tenth burst out of Shostakovich - after an eight-year hiatus - immediately after Stalin's death. Kirill Petrenko calls the work in which the composer makes himself the protagonist "the greatest liberation in his artistic work after the Fifth": his monogram in tones - D-Es-C-H - triumphs in a fierce struggle over the mighty machinery of the dictatorship. The hope for freedom that stands at the end of this symphony holds great topicality as a musical message.

The edition contains the recordings made during the Corona pandemic on two CDs and a Blu-ray. They are accompanied by an interview film with Kirill Petrenko and in-depth texts on Shostakovich's work. In the foreword, the chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker also explains his attachment to the composer's work. The edition was designed by Thomas Demand. His photographs symbolise the field of tension in which Shostakovich created his works: on the outside, the oppressively uniform row of iron lockers; on the inside, photographs of flowers in Moscow's Gorky Park.

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Kirill Petrenko, conductor

Kirill Petrenko
was born in Omsk, Siberia, in 1972 and studied piano at the school of music there. He appeared in public as a pianist for the first time at the age of eleven with the symphony orchestra in Omsk. In 1990 he moved with his family (father violinist, mother musicologist) to Vorarlberg, Austria, where his father accepted a position as an orchestral musician and music teacher. Petrenko continued his studies in Feldkirch, then studied conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

His first engagement took him to the Wiener Volksoper as assistant and Kapellmeister immediately after graduation. From 1999 to 2002 Kirill Petrenko was general music director at the Theater Meiningen, where he attracted international attention for the first time in 2001 with a production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, directed by Christine Mielitz with sets by Alfred Hrdlicka. In 2002 Kirill Petrenko began his tenure as general music director of the Komische Oper Berlin, where he conducted a series of impressive productions until 2007.

Petrenko’s international career developed rapidly during his years in Meiningen and Berlin. In 2000 Kirill Petrenko made his debut at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, in 2001 at the Wiener Staatsoper and the Semperoper in Dresden, in 2003 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London, the Bayerische Staatsoper and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and in 2005 at the Frankfurt Opera. From 2006 to 2010 he presented a cycle of Tchaikovsky’s three Pushkin operas with Peter Stein in Lyon.

After leaving the Komische Oper Berlin Kirill Petrenko worked as a freelance conductor.

In addition to his operatic career Kirill Petrenko has also appeared on concert stages throughout the world. He has collaborated with leading orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra Santa Cecilia in Rome, the RAI Orchestra in Turin and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Kirill Petrenko has also conducted concerts at the Bregenz and Salzburg Festivals. From 2013 until 2015 he conducted the new production of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival.

Kirill Petrenko began his tenure as general music director of the Bayerische Staatsoper on September 1, 2013. Since then he conducted, besides a huge number of revivals, the premieres of Die Frau ohne Schatten (Richard Strauss), La clemenza di Tito (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) and Die Soldaten (Bernd Alois Zimmermann), Lucia di Lammermoor (Gaetano Donizetti), South Pole (Miroslav Srnka, world premiere), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Richard Wagner), Alban Berg’s Lulu, Giacomo Puccini’s Il trittico and Richard Wagner’s Parsifal.

In June 2015 Kirill Petrenko was elected as the next chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic as of the 2019/20 season.

Booklet for Shostakovich: Symphonies 8-10