Shostakovich and Elgar

Elgar’s Cello Concerto is music about a lost paradise, a world before the First World War. Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony follows seamlessly. Its grand opening movement—almost a symphony in itself—breathes the same melancholy. But all clouds vanish when the E-flat clarinet introduces the second movement: a playful tune that could have stepped straight out of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol. All’s well that ends well?