Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 | Neeme Järvi & Lucerne Symphony Orchestra

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 | Neeme Järvi & Lucerne Symphony Orchestra
蕭斯塔科維奇：第九號交響曲 | 內梅·雅爾維與盧塞恩交響樂團

4,444 views May 9, 2026 KULTUR- UND KONGRESSZENTRUM LUZERN
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A symphony that was meant to celebrate the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, yet delivers a stinging, irony-laden rebuke to the Stalinist regime — this is the political tightrope walked by Dmitri Shostakovich in his Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Op. 70. In this video, it's performed by the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Neeme Järvi. The concert took place on February 9 and 10, 2011, at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre

(00:00) I. Allegro
(05:25) II. Moderato
(12:44) III. Presto
(15:34) IV. Largo
(18:39) V. Allegretto

The fact that Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) was expected to write his Ninth Symphony in 1945, at the end of World War II, naturally raised high expectations. The very number alone evoked Ludwig van Beethoven’s world-famous Ninth with its monumental finale. Moreover, Shostakovich himself had announced a symphony that would express the heroic victory of the Soviet army.

But things turned out differently — the work is anything but a triumphal symphony to mark the end of a war. Instead, his Symphony No. 9, which was so heavily charged with meaning even before it was finished, could be described as an "anti-Ninth." It's a cheerful, light-footed neoclassical work lasting only about half an hour. Accordingly, its premiere on November 3, 1945, in Leningrad, performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky, came as a surprise, taking the Soviet leadership aback. The consequence was that for many years thereafter, Shostakovich composed his works without intending for them to be publishing or performed — only returning to publishing symphonies after the death of Joseph Stalin (1878–1953).

Shostakovich was of the most important Russian composers of the 20th century and wrote 15 symphonies. Undeniably, the political circumstances of their time play a role in each. For this reason, his symphonic output been described as a "secret history of Russia." "Secret," because the composer had to maintain a delicate balance between outward conformity to the dictates of the Stalinist regime and inner distance — even subtle rebellion. During Stalin’s reign, Shostakovich was under constant surveillance and persecution, in perpetual fear of arrest or even death.

The five-movement Symphony No. 9, Op. 70 is largely devoid of pathos and instead has a witty character. Its strict classical form recalls the symphonies of Joseph Haydn. In its lightness, the Ninth seems almost inadequate to the gravity of the historical moment. Is it mere clowning — or a kind of musical hide-and-seek? In any case, numerous motifs from other triumphal works are quoted, yet so intricately interwoven that they are difficult to discern.

As a result, there are many interpretations of the form and meaning of the orchestral work. Musicologists even debate whether Shostakovich embedded a highly explosive political message within it. In the first movement, there are quotations from Gustav Mahler’s song "Lob des hohen Verstandes" (from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn). Mahler’s song tells of a contest between the cuckoo and the nightingale over who sings more beautifully. The judge, of all creatures, is a donkey — who promptly awards victory to the cuckoo. It has been suggested that by quoting this song, Shostakovich was mocking the Stalinist composers’ union — and that Stalin himself, hailed after the war as the wisest of the wise, assumes the role of the donkey, at least from Shostakovich’s perspective.

In that sense, Symphony No. 9 may not be a work written to mark the end of the war at all. Instead, it could be understood as a composer’s satire of a dictatorial regime that hindered —or even made impossible — his work due to censorship.

Film Provided by DW Classical Music