LSO Live’s New Album, “Shostakovich Symphony No. 11”

Conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, the London Symphony Orchestra has released its next instalment of Shostakovich’s complete symphonies

Since its launch in 1999, the London Symphony Orchestra’s own record label, LSO Live, has pioneered the concept of artist-owned labels, allowing the players, conductors, and soloists to be stakeholders in the recordings.

LSO Live’s release of “Shostakovich Symphony No. 11” is the latest in a cycle of Shostakovich’s complete symphonies with LSO Principal Guest Conductor Gianandrea Noseda, which will culminate in all 15 symphonies

Inspired by a time of war and protest, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 in G Minor, Op. 103, “The Year 1905” reflects the tumult and tragedy of the 1905 Russian Revolution. 

According to the composer himself, the Eleventh Symphony was “about the people.” The work ultimately depicts the workers’ uprising of the time — one that both his own father and uncle were a part of and had survived. 

In order, the work’s movements are titled “The Palace Square,” Adagio; The 9th of January, Allegro; In Memoriam, Adagio; and Tocsin, Allegro non troppo. 

To purchase and listen to the album, click here. 

“When you do a symphonic cycle, even if it takes six years to be completed, you approach all the symphonies with the feeling of a story to be told,” Noseda said. “It’s like a novel with different chapters.”

After making his debut appearance with the LSO in 2006, Noseda joined as the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor in the 2016/17 season. He is known for his mastery of the Russian repertoire, plus his Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov recordings on the LSO Live. 

His collaborations with the LSO have since included performances of Verdi’s Rigoletto at the Barbican and Aix-en-Provence Festival, plus a critically acclaimed interpretation of Britten’s War Requiem in 2011. Currently, Noseda is General Music Director of the Zurich Opera House and Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, where his contract was recently extended through 2031.