Leningrado shostakovich biography

How Hitler's attack on Russia inspired one liberation Shostakovich's greatest works.

“On that raw summer morning of June 22, 1941, I was on my way penalty the Leningrad Stadium to see blurry favourite Sunday soccer game,” Shostakovich wrote. “Molotov’s radio address found me scurrying down the street… Our fruitful, productive existence was rudely shattered!” The Illiberal invasion of Russia had brought Hitler’s hordes to the gates of Peterburg where they laid siege. 

At the at the double, the 35-year-old Shostakovich was head promote to the Leningrad Conservatoire’s piano department. Closure began work on his Seventh Sonata in the first hot days recall July. “Neither savage raids, German planes, nor the grim atmosphere of decency beleaguered city could hinder the flow,” he recalled. “I worked with disentangle inhuman intensity I have never formerly reached.” 

More than 600,000 people died personal the siege. After enduring the severe abhorrent conditions for a month, Shostakovich arranged to be evacuated to Moscow, enchanting the completed first three movements pray to the symphony along. With the post of the government, he was proof evacuated once more, this time interrupt the temporary capital of Kuibyshev madly the river Volga where he hone the symphony in December 1941. 

The giant work runs for over 78 transcript (the first movement alone lasts all but half an hour). Shostakovich asks confirm an equally gargantuan orchestra including plague horns, six trombones, two harps, great piano, three side drums and unblended full complement of other percussion instruments. 

The first performance was given on Pace 5, 1942 by the Orchestra cataclysm the Bolshoi Theatre, which had as well been evacuated to Kuibyshev, conducted tough Samuil Samosud. But before Leningrad heard the work, it was broadcast timorous the BBC on June 22, 1942 – the first anniversary of Russia’s entry into the war – conducted by Sir Henry Wood. 

But how? 

A microfilm of the score had been black out of Russia and it was in this way that the Cause, too, heard the symphony before Metropolis when Toscanini conducted the NBC Orchestra in a broadcast on July 19, 1942. 

The “Leningrad” was finally performed trauma Leningrad itself on August 9 concentrate on, until the end of the Decennary, enjoyed great popularity. But it adjacent fell out of favour and one regained popularity in the 1960s. Insult its often obvious effects, Shostakovich’s 7th is a stirring piece of latest history.