THERE can be little doubt that Shostakovich was living in troubled times when he wrote his gigantic Eighth Symphony.

It reflects 1943, a grim time for the Soviet Union in the course of World War II. But it also reflects the culmination of a period of artistic persecution for the composer. Pravda had attacked his work relentlessly and he was forced to channel his artistic endeavours into pleasing the overlords of the Communist Party.

And so we have this work, written in an astonishing two months at the Composers’ Retreat which was on Collective Poultry Farm No 69. Yet this is no battery chicken type of symphony-on-demand. It is a massive, profound and highly moving work – and that spirit was amply captured by the RLPO at the Philharmonic Hall, under Vasily Petrenko.

Right from the powerful, almost menacing string argument at the outset – along with the almost frightening combination of drums and brass – this was a profound interpretation, getting to the very heart of the torture which the composer seemed to be feeling.