# Where is DSCH in Symphony 8?



## Protosini (Aug 11, 2017)

The wiki page for DSCH lists the 8th symphony as containing it, but I have not yet been able to locate it. Does anyone know where it occurs? Thanks!


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I don't know that signature in the 8th symphony though lots of places say it's there. Here are examples of it from the Shostakovich journal:

http://dschjournal.com/dsch-motif


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

If it is there then it must be either very buried or only nebulously referred to, not that I have an academic's ears. Occasionally Shostakovich twisted the motive by rearranging the four notes but nothing jumps out from the 8th at all.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

The problem with Wiki is that there are a lot of so-called "practical jokers" around who like to put their tuppence worth in and not everything you read can be found to be absolutely true.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Not exactly the most hilarious joke, though.......

I reckon the DSCH motif is alluded to in the martial second movement, but I emphatically cannot prove it. More a Shostakovich fingerprint than a proper Leitmotif there??

Off the top of my head, the obvious examples would be Symphony No.10, String Quartet No.8, the First Violin Concerto, and of course the bitterly witty Preface.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I don't think the signature motive is intentionally used in the 8th Symphony. There are those who will insist they have found it transposed, which effectively makes it someone else's signature.  It's like those people always finding the Dies Irae motive in Rachmaninoff. They're right about one quarter of the time.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Protosini said:


> The wiki page for DSCH lists the 8th symphony as containing it, but I have not yet been able to locate it. Does anyone know where it occurs? Thanks!


I think some listeners may be listening for the DSCH motive in his Symphony _No. 8_ when it's actually prominent in his String Quartet _No. 8_. I've never seen it being referred to by others in his 8th, one of his war symphony written in 1943. I would consider his string quartet more autobiographical and personal to himself to use his DSCH.


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