Symphony no. 8

Symphony No. 8 is the eighth symphony by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, composed in 1943. The four-movement work is a large-scale, sombre orchestral symphony characterised by dense, often brooding textures, dramatic brass and string writing and extended developmental passages, reflecting the composer's wartime circumstances and signalling a shift towards darker, more introspective material in his mid-career symphonic output.