Belgian National Orchestra & Zhang

Amidst the turbulent years of the Great Purge—a large-scale campaign of persecutions in the Soviet Union—Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony. The authorities interpreted the work, with its ecstatic finale, as the story of a Soviet hero whose personality was forged through various crises, ultimately triumphing in the finale and looking optimistically towards the future. However, others heard in the four-part symphony a hidden criticism of the regime.