These days, orchestral composers will do just about anything to get noticed.

In Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich's day, though, one wrong move could land a composer in a gulag in Siberia.

Contrarian views or music that did not toe the party line on patriotism or artistic concepts were not welcome.

The result? Artists with dissenting views were forced to express their true feelings between the lines, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 is a crowning example.

"Everyone's music is shaped by the world they live in, and the era of Stalin shaped all the music it produced," said Michael Morgan, the music director of the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra. "When real emotions can't be openly expressed, whether it's because of societal or self-censorship, it's through art that expression is still possible."

The grand and bold four-movement Fifth Symphony anchors the Sacramento Philharmonic's Saturday performance at the Community Center Theater.

The work will share a program with Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, with cellist Joseph Johnson, and "Blue Hour," a new work by the Bay Area composer Conrad Susa. Morgan will conduct.

In 1937, when the Fifth Symphony was first performed, Shostakovich was already reeling from the ban of his successful but musically wild opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk."

At the time, Joseph Stalin saw it as a criticism of the Communist regime. That year also saw fellow composer Alexander Mosolov shipped off to a Siberian gulag. The situation for Shostakovich became tenuous – so much so that he was known to keep a packed suitcase by his bedside in case the authorities came calling in the dark of night.

As a result, his Fifth Symphony offers two meanings, not one. It is a tuneful symphony suggesting hope as it plumbs despair. It also can be seen as an ironic commentary on repression.

"Without the emotional baggage of words, each listener can come to his own conclusions about its true meaning," Morgan said.

Whatever meaning is gleaned from the work depends on who is listening, and when. Russian audiences of the 1930s were accustomed to looking for double meanings, given the repression foisted upon artists at the time.

"This was the height of the Stalinist purges and undoubtedly one of the darkest years of Russian history in the 20th century, if not the very darkest," said Jenny Kaminer, assistant professor in the Russian program at UC Davis.

"It's estimated that, between 1937 and 1938, approximately 1.5 million people were detained by the security forces," she said. "And somewhat less than half of them were executed, with the majority of the remainder presumably shipped off to gulags."

For Shostakovich, who was born in 1907 and died in 1975, that threat was a long-standing one. He had spent half of his life working under the dictator's merciless eye by the time the dictator died in 1953.

In the present day, Western audiences sometimes have a different, more literal reading of the work. The last movement of the symphony is a prime example. On first hearing, the movement sounds triumphant.

"The music only seems happy at the very surface. It was clearly written by someone who was smiling through difficulty, which is why it continues to speak to people," said Morgan. "The smiling is faint and sometimes forced. Everyone knows this feeling."

In contrast, the work's first movement plays out like a subtle cry that is overtaken by something ironic – a marchlike theme that musicologists have termed the "Stalin Theme."

"To me the interesting question for today's audiences is whether the piece remains interesting if you don't grasp its double meanings," said Charles Kronengold, assistant professor of musicology at Stanford University. "Is it affirmation or critique? Collective suffering or private turmoil? Social commentary or 'just music?'

"I think it kind of needs those unresolved tensions. Otherwise, it becomes pompous and conceptually slack."

The Fifth Symphony was likely Shostakovich's first try at finding a way to survive under Stalin's thumb. In a way, the work is a clever statement of appeasement. Its tunefulness and traditional approach was warmly received by Stalin, and it resonated with audiences.

Its tunefulness has made it a bedrock of the Russian orchestral repertoire and the symphonic work most frequently performed in the West.

"Its strengths and weaknesses, much like the inner workings of its complex creator, are likely to remain topics of heated contention for a long time," said D. Kern Holoman, former conductor of the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra and author of the book "Evenings With the Orchestra."

"In the meanwhile, we can accept the work for what it is – a flamboyant program symphony in the grand manner that is big, bold, and brassy."

SACRAMENTO PHILHARMONIC

HIDDEN MEANINGS

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Community Center Theater, 1301 L St.,

Sacramento

Tickets: $16-$97

Information: (916) 808-5181, www.sacphil.org

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