"Jurowski seems to be making the point that this is a symphony of sorrowful songs, revolutionary and otherwise, until the musically re-imagined Palace Square massacre midway through the second movement, a preciselyarticulated tornado. Everything moves inevitably towards that point, everything connects"

"Jurowski recalls those songs - the thematic fabric of this score - as only a Russian could; their melancholy is personal. He is plainly set on dismissing once and for all the notion held by some that this marvellous piece is little more than glorified movie music ... There is urgency and heat in Jurowski's reading, and come the Bloody Sunday massacre at the fulcrum of the piece he seems to accentuate that it is music's most methodical and rigorous form - the fugue - which Shostakovich uses to drive us towards systematic slaughter"