Schubert’s concise Third Symphony, written in 1815 during an explosion of creativity which saw over 200 compositions written, nevertheless foreshadows ideas that would expand the scale of the symphony. Liadov’s brilliant and fantastical tone poem is one of the most beautiful atmospheric depictions of a lake, inhabited by fairies and wood sprites, in the moonlight. Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony was written in a fateful year – 1945 – and subverted the expectations of the Russian musical world. Devoid of pompous grandeur; it is a transparent, classically-oriented work belying a complex emotional landscape riddled with Shostakovich’s irreverent sense of humour.
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