D.S. Lewis reviews the Shrewsbury Symphony Orchestra's Spring Concert in the Alington Hall on March 5th, 2026

A full and ambitious programme began with the musical equivalent of an “amuse-bouche”, a 6-minute, bite-sized hors d’oeuvre, that delivered a disproportionately satisfying punch.  In keeping with the Shrewsbury Symphony Orchestra’s commendable commitment to featuring the work of women, this Overture for Orchestra was written by Grażyna Bacewicz, one of Poland’s most distinguished composers, in 1943, when Warsaw was under harsh Nazi occupation.  As a woman in an environment of gender subjugation, brutal racism and systematic genocide, mere survival was an achievement.  Creating music—that would not be heard in public until after the war—was not just a quiet act of self-preservation; it was also a form of oblique resistance.

The piece began at a gallop.  It morphed briefly into a rather lovely woodwind melody, delicately played, before resuming its former pace and developing a martial quality, complete with percussion that sounded like cannon fire.  All too soon it was over, but it had succeeded in subtly highlighting the unifying theme of the evening’s fare: that creating music in the face of tyranny requires courage amid the complexities of collaboration and resistance.

But before this could be fully explored there was a step back in time, with a magnificent rendition of Antonin Dvořák’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G minor, written in Prague, in 1876, when the composer was still struggling to achieve recognition.  Central to the performance was the youthful pianist, Galin Ganchev (Bulgarian by birth and a former music scholar at Shrewsbury School), whose faultless fingers danced over the keys, seemingly moving at the speed of light. More than simply a vehicle for a virtuoso soloist, this was a dialogue between orchestra and piano: sometimes duelling, sometimes wooing, but always compelling.  The lyrical first movement featured a brilliantly performed Cadenza, while the second was moody and gentle, still a dialogue but now one of whispered intimacy.  The final movement was fast and fiery, an intricate interplay between piano and orchestra that was vividly realised.  The sustained applause that followed the final notes compelled Mr Ganchev to return to his piano and flawlessly offer up a solo piece by Richard Strauss, which went down like a delightful palate-cleanser.

After the interval came the evening’s main course: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, a piece written in the summer of 1937, at the height of Stalin’s paranoid and murderous regime.  Though Shostakovich was renowned in the Soviet Union and the wider world, the modernism of his music had drawn the disapproving eye of the Great Dictator.  Fearing imminent arrest, the composer chose to bend the knee by creating a symphony replete with the lyrical-heroism so beloved of tyrants.  The ploy worked: it succeeded in rehabilitating him, though on close examination the piece is shot through with an ambiguity that continues to spark debate.

In the first movement, slow strings and woodwind meandered ominously before picking up pace and volume with the distorted martial beat of drums and clashing cymbals, and then fading to a close with slow, poignant horns.  The second movement was a satirical waltz and featured a short but pretty solo by the orchestra’s impressive Leader, Alex Postlethwaite.  The tragic third movement was played with exquisite tenderness, as delicate as a trail of paw prints left in freshly-fallen snow.  Aching strings, caressed by bow or sometimes plucked, were hauntingly accompanied by woodwind and harp.  It felt like walking, enchanted, in some dreamlike forest, whilst ever-conscious of a gathering storm.  The tension grew and receded, building in waves but finding no clear release, despite increasing volume and intensity.  It remained unresolved, fading out to the exquisite notes of a celesta, each falling like a softly-shed tear.

The final movement was bombastic, laden with triumphant optimism.  But something else was evident, something that hovered uneasily around the margins, never quite clear but impossible to ignore.  There was a frantic quality to the music that suggested raw energy rather than genuine joy.  It spoke of state-sponsored exuberance, forced upon the individual by men in uniform—and how dictators always love a uniform!  It built to a furious and insistent climax, with fusillades of percussion and raucous brass, as though one was being beaten around the head by a policeman’s cosh.

The entire symphony was superbly performed and undeniably spectacular.  It also raised intractable questions over the nature of collaboration and resistance.  These were highlighted at the end of the programme in a timely summation by the orchestra’s conductor, John Moore, who had so magnificently guided his players—and the audience—through this huge and remarkable experience.  He posed questions about the nature of public and private truths, a subject forever elusive but never more pertinent than in today’s climate of manufactured reality.

D.S. Lewis