No composer understood the eternal mendacity of Russian leadership like Shostakovich. I am convinced Shostakovich 8 is a programmatic war symphony, the first movement portraying a night bombing - dread insomnia at night, air raid sirens, evacuation to the basement, the bombs get dropped, and bitter resumption of life. The second is military parade with all its accompanying bombast. The third is a darkly comic portrayal of munition factories with an ear to imitating Chaplin's Modern Times, perhaps with a factory explosion at the end. Finally the last two movements are, I believe, a portrayal of normal life resuming, only for there to be another air raid, and finally, ending with gratitude that we've lived through another day. It is one of the greatest scores of the 20th century by far, and neither did the 20th century ever have a greater composer than Dmitri Shostakovich, nor did the 19th century have a greater one since Beethoven. He occupies a place akin to Goya in art - a witness to political horror, a painter of barbarity, grotesque, and nightmares, but also humor, eros, hope, and pleas for human dignity.
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