Which Mahler Symphony or Shostakovich Quartet Inspired ‘The Thin Ice’ and ‘The Gunner’s Dream’?

Roger Waters has openly name-dropped Gustav Mahler and Dmitri Shostakovich as key influences during The Wall and The Final Cut sessions. He never pointed to a single movement or bar, but the fingerprints are all over the orchestral arrangements. For The Thin Ice, the slow, descending string lines and the way the brass bleeds in over the final verse recalls Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) —