Symphony No. 2 (Shostakovich) October Revolution in his Twelfth Symphony, subtitled "The Year 1917". The symphony is a short (about 20 minutes) experimental work in one movement; within this movement are four sections, the last of which includes a chorus. In a marked departure from his First Symphony, Shostakovich composed his Second in a gestural, geometric "music without emotional structure" manner, with the intent of reflecting speech patterns and physical movements in a neo-realistic style. This choice may have been influenced at least partially by Vsevolod Meyerhold's theory of biomechanics. Shostakovich placed far more emphasis on texture in this work than he did on
Symphony No. 8 (Henze) Pole is naturally at the opposite end of the range. The second movement depicts Titania's attempted seduction of Bottom, whilst the Adagio final movement takes Puck's "If we shadows have offended" speech at the end of the play. It was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who commissioned the piece (and to whom Henze dedicated it) under Seiji Ozawa on 1 October 1993. Symphony No. 8 (Henze) The Eighth Symphony by the German composer Hans Werner Henze was composed in 1992–93. Using Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as inspiration, it has a lighter theme than the major work it immediately