“In the end, I only have two symphonies: the Fourth and the Eighth,” Shostakovich is said to have said. Evgeny Mravinsky, the dedicatee of Symphony No. 8, writes in his diary: “I spent the whole evening thinking back over and reconstructing in draft form the shape and dramatic line of Shostakovich’s Eighth. It always moves me more deeply each time. Especially the line of the ‘Great Terror’ in the first movement.” The themes of martyrdom and the transformation of the human being into a manipulable puppet run through this troubling and monumental work. This recording is the second volume of the complete cycle of Shostakovich symphonies by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, conducted by its music director, Alain Altinoglu.