Andris Nelsons’s Shostakovich cycle, taken from live performances in Boston, has been released in rather haphazard groupings, and this final instalment is no exception. It bundles together four of the least performed of the 15 symphonies, spanning 35 years of his composing career. The 13th symphony very much stands apart from the other works, but those three were all composed as anniversary works: the second, from 1927, marked the 10th anniversary of the October revolution, the third, composed two years later, was a celebration of the May Day holiday and the victory of the proletariat over tsarist oppression, while in 1961 the 12th again celebrated the October revolution, and Lenin’s leadership of it, in a programmatic depiction of its crucial episodes.
