Festive Overture, Op.96

Life was grim in the Soviet Union and any excuse for a celebration would do - like, say, the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution, for which numercially unremarkable occasion Shostakovich was commissioned to write his Festive Overture in 1954. Challenged by the excessively short notice he had been given and happy to take the handsome fee that came with it, Shostakovich immediately sat down at his desk and within an hour was sending the score, page by page, to the Bolshoi Theatre where the orchestra was waiting to rehearse it.

A brilliant example of its kind, the Festive Overture opens with a authentically splendid fanfare and then races off at speed with an irresponsibly cheerful theme on woodwind. It seems unlikely that the graceful tune which later enters on horn and cellos could generate more celebratory energy than the woodwind theme but it does, not least effectively on its hectic last appearance after the climactic return of the opening fanfares.