Programme notes symphony no.5 His use of the orchestra remains distinctive, the brutality of the central section emphasized by the use of low braying horns, playing well out of their comfort zone. Any suggestions of irony or ambivalent emotions are completely absent when we reach the third movement Largo, the heart of the Fifth, its tragic lament in the key of F sharp minor. It is fully understandable why many present at the work's premiere in November 1937 wept openly when hearing this music. Shostakovich showed himself to be truly in tune with the feelings of the people who had all been affected by anxiety, fear and loss during the Great Terror. The coarse Interruption of the Finale completely shatters the mood of the preceding Largo, but prepares the way well for the conclusion of this dramatic Symphony; it Starts with excitement and brutal energy, betöre giving way fo the central reflective section that culminates in the aforementioned Pushkin quotation. And so to the ending. Volkov has already quoted Shostakovich allegedly referring to the forced celebration at the coronation scene in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. But there is a Russian tradition of ambivalent endings and most markedly so with Tchaikovsky: Tchaikovsky's explanation (in a letter to Nadezhda von Meck) of his Fourth Symphony's finale is strangely apt for Shostakovich: Programme notes by Timothy Dowling, November 2016 'The fourth movement. If within yourself you find no reasons for joy, look at others. Go among the people. Observe how they can enjoy themselves. Surrendering themselves wholeheartedly to joyful feelings." (letter to Nadezhda von Meck, 1877, as quoted in David Brown's Tchaikovsky, Volume II: The Crisis Years) Shostakovich's Fifth culminates with a combination of woodwind and strings playing the dominant note A no less than 252 firnes. After 1979, the interpretation of these repeated notes has changed dramatically. Rostropovich slowed down markedly with subsequent performances: his 2002 recording of the Finale with the LSO taking 2'/a minutes longer than Mravinsky's 1975 performance. This reflects his view that "the strident repeated notes at the end of the symphony are like the stabbing strokes of a spear thrust into the wounds of a tormented man". Alternatively, we might also hear echoes of the closing bars of Mahler's Third Symphony with the same slow thumping out of the tonic-dominant D and A on timpani taking us to the conclusion. Perhaps this too reflects Shostakovich's hope for the ultimate victory of love, with its memories of Mahler's depiction of ’What Love Teils Me'. It will always be very difficult to separate this great Symphony from its political associations, but its triumph of personal survival in challenging circumstances will surely continue to resonate.