Shostakovich’s hour-long Eighth Symphony of 1943 sprawls across five movements and, in the process, breaks just about all the concepts of what was supposed to make good music in the middle of the 2oth century. It’s not hard to imagine Stravinsky or Schoenberg—and certainly their followers—disdaining the repetition, the extravagant and often ear-splitting use of orchestra, and the blatant emotionalism and subjectivity in the music. And, for whatever reason, the musical establishment as a whole—the folks who decide, slowly, surely, and largely unconsciously—what music the classical listening public will hear most frequently in concerts or on recording, has largely relegated the piece to the outer reaches of the repertoire.

But Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony is also, by his own admission, one of Dallas Symphony music director Jaap van Zweden’s favorite works. And his reading of the score Thursday night with the orchestra at Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, the first of four performances of the piece scheduled through Sunday, was scintillating and engaging, belying the work’s reputation for ponderousness and obscurity. That the orchestra was in top form for the performance, both emotionally and technically, was clear from the opening section, a huge essay in complex counterpoint for the string section, demanding extraordinary precision and uniformity of tone. The amazing and marvelous extended English horn solo that followed was the best of many high points in the performance, in which the inherent bleakness of much of the music is countered by often lavish but equally pessimistic moments of arresting musical violence, with deliberately shrill timbres, relentless dissonance, and earsplitting percussion effects.

Given the work’s origin in the midst of one of the darkest chapters of human history — the German invasion of the Soviet Union — it’s easy to read the final movement’s mildly hopeful mood as a representation not of triumph, but as a quiet, almost introverted paean to mere survival. While the specific historical and political content of the work become less important with the passage of time, the portrayal, in musical terms, of acceptance and willingness to continue becomes more significant to listeners 60 years later. Shostakovich’s reputation has risen steadily in recent years. Van Zweden’s ability to communicate the subtle power of this music, and to clearly win over an audience that often seems to prefer flashiness and shallow virtuosity, is remarkable and commendable.

The concert had opened with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, with Scottish (yes, Scottish) violinist Nicola Benedetti as soloist. Benedetti, who owns an impressive technique and beautiful tone, clearly wanted to focus on the showy aspects of the work, pushing the tempo in the dark opening section and never really finding the philosophical power of the piece. To her credit, she managed some arresting moments in the numerous lyrical passages, but, on the whole, never got far past the work’s pretty surface.

Photo: Dmitri Shostakovich as a volunteer firefighter in 1941 during the siege of Leningrad (via Armchair General)