Cocktail Party Fact: Realizing that this sort of modernist music had fallen into ideological disfavor, Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich withdrew his 4th Symphony before its premiere. When asked if he wanted to make any changes in it when he finally released it for performance 25 years later, he said, “Let them eat it.”

Commitment Factor: About 65 minutes.

Vital Statistics: Modern Period. A symphony in three movements, two long ones sandwiching a short one.

What to Listen For: Don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out the organization of this piece: even the experts haven’t done that yet. The symphony consists of a large number of contrasting episodes. Some have even suggested that it’s a kind of film score in search of a film. Note how Shostakovich uses his gargantuan orchestra sometimes in earsplitting tuttis, and sometimes in chamber-like combinations. (He was studying Mahler at the time.) Note the furious fugato section toward the end of the first movement which culminates in a military incident very much like the one in the composer’s celebrated 5th Symphony. The relatively tiny second movement is much lighter. It waltzes sadly along and ends on a Bronx cheer. The third movement starts with a funeral march that might have been written by Mahler himself. After a series of explosive climaxes, the symphony ends with a long deathbed scene: while wisps of melody wander, like random thoughts, over a pedal C, a heartbeat (low strings) throbs on for a few minutes, then falters, and finally stops.