Inspired by a time of war, protest, and a nation on the brink, Shostakovich’s Symphony No 11 reflects upon the tumult and tragedy of the 1905 Russian Revolution.

Shostakovich was believed to have said the Eleventh Symphony was ‘about the people’, and the beginning of the work captures the somber repression felt by many at the time. The work is sometimes dubbed as a ‘film score without the film’, and this is truly evident as the music unfolds. It begins to embody a spirit of courage—of struggle for a just cause. Eventually, the symphony takes on an overwhelming intensity as it depicts the workers’ uprising that ensued—one that the composer’s own father and uncle were a part of and, miraculously, survived.

Conductor Gianandrea Noseda is known for his mastery of Russian repertoire, and his Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov recordings of the London Symphony Orchestra on the LSO’s own label have attracted glowing reviews. This album is the next in a revered cycle of Shostakovich’s complete symphonies with Gianandrea Noseda, which already comprises nine of the fifteen symphonies.

London Symphony Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda, Conductor