Sonderkonzert am Vorabend der Internationalen Schostakowitsch Tage Gohrisch by Weinberg, Shostakovich, De la (2023/2023), Dirijor Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Kulturpalast, Dresden, Germany

AMBIGUITY The terror and political pressure of Stalinist musical life hit Dmitri Shostakovich directly in 1936. The composer was only able to evade the open threat of consequences by presenting himself as a reformed man – the Fifth was an attempt at public rehabilitation. But the interpretation of the symphony is never clear: is the military march in the first movement directed against external enemies or rather against Soviet terror itself? In the second movement, Ländler and brass band take Stalin's system ad absurdum? Who is the moving lament of the third movement aimed at? And doesn't the jubilation at the finale seem, as Shostakovich would later claim, "forced under threats"?