Litton Leads Shostakovich & Brahms with Michelle Cann

In 1943, Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Symphony No. 8 for the Festival of Soviet Music celebrating the 25 th anniversary of the Soviet Union. It wasn’t a festive piece so much as an epic statement about war as the cruelest of all evils. Though criticized as gloomy and despairing, it remains one of Shostakovich’s finest scores.