Symphony No. 7 - a musical symbol of the siege of Leningrad

The famous Seventh (Leningrad) symphony of Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975) was first performed in besieged Leningrad 77 years ago on August 9, 1942. One of the most important works of art of Russian culture of the 20th century has become a musical symbol of the siege of Leningrad, the stamina and courage of the city’s defenders. The Presidential Library’s electronic collections contain a digitized handwritten score of the symphony, the original of which is stored in the music library of the St. Petersburg Radio House.  

The score entered the Presidential Library’s collections through collaboration with the National Media Group for the Preservation of Historical Memory. The document was handed over for digitization to library specialists at a ceremony dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the breaking the siege and the 74th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege in January 2018.

Each of the four parts of the symphony is presented in a separate notebook. The score’s pages contain litters of conductors S. A. Samosud and K. I. Eliasberg, made with ink and colored pencils. The composition of the orchestra (instruments) and other information about the first performance are indicated on the back of the title page of the first notebook.

The initiator of the performance of the Seventh Symphony in besieged Leningrad was the chief conductor of the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra of the Leningrad Radio Committee, K. I. Eliasberg. Rehearsals in the city on the Neva began after the score of Shostakovich was delivered here by a special plane in July 1942. The symphony required an enhanced orchestra, so a lot of work was done to find the surviving musicians in Leningrad itself and the nearest front line.

The premiere took place on August 9, 1942 in the crowded hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic. The sounds of the enemy’s guns were not heard - the Soviet artillerymen, as part of Operation Flurry, received an order from the commander of the Leningrad Front L. A. Govorov, to suppress the fire of German guns at all costs, and the task was completed. The symphony was broadcast on the radio and through loudspeakers on the streets of the city. German soldiers standing near Leningrad also heard it...

Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper of August 7, 1942, which is available on the Presidential Library’s portal, reflects preparations for the performance of the Seventh Symphony in the besieged city.

Another unique document is the program of the Seventh Symphony from a performance in besieged Leningrad on August 9, 1942. It entered the electronic collections of the Presidential Library thanks to the cooperation of the institution with the D. D. Shostakovich St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonic and the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theater and Music.

As an epigraph the program contained an excerpt from an article by writer Alexei Tolstoy: “The Seventh Symphony emerged from the conscience of the Russian people, who accepted without hesitation a mortal battle with black forces. Written in Leningrad, it has grown to the size of great world art, understandable at all latitudes and meridians, because it tells the truth about a person in an unprecedented year of his disasters and trials".

“The seventh symphony of Dmitry Shostakovich is an expression of the growing and inevitable victory of the Soviet people over Hitler Germany, the symphony of all-conquering courage, a symphony of triumphant truth of the Soviet people over all the reactionary forces of the world”, - we read another epigraph of authorship of the Soviet statesman Emelyan Yaroslavsky.

By the way, the document digitized by the Presidential Library brought a number of interesting discoveries. For example, in the group of trombones the program indicated Igor Karpets. He was not a professional musician, but before the war he graduated from a music school at the trombone rate and, when needed, was called from the forefront and remarkably fit into a group of professional musicians. By that time, less than a dozen remained in the orchestra of the Radio House of the latter: someone died from exhaustion, others were evacuated...  

Igor Karpets has become a well-known legal scholar, criminologist, doctor of legal sciences, headed the All-Union Scientific Research Institute for the Promotion of Law and Order under the USSR Prosecutor's Office and the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The performance of the Seventh Symphony in the besieged city, which was memorable and had great psychological significance for Leningraders, was not the only such performance in 1942. The score mentioned was also used in the very first performance of the symphony on March 5, 1942 in Kuibyshev by the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra conducted by Samuel Samosud. It was in Kuibyshev that D. D. Shostakovich was evacuated from Leningrad in October 1941. He managed to write three parts of the famous symphony in his native, besieged city, between the participation in the construction of anti-tank fortifications and the extinguishing of incendiary bombs, the fourth part was written in evacuation.

March 29, 1942 the orchestra conducted by S. A. Samosud performed the symphony already in Moscow. In the summer of the same year, two premieres took place abroad: on June 22 it was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Henry Wood in London, on July 19 - the New York Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini in New York. Later, the symphony was recorded by many prominent conductors from different countries. The music of the first part was staged by the widely known ballet The Leningrad Symphony.

A series of events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the first performance of D. D. Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony was held on the Senate Square, 3, 2017.

The Presidential Library diligently preserves the memory of the war and the siege. As part of a joint campaign with the media in St. Petersburg, the city residents brought thousands of documents for digitalization. The library’s portal features “Memory of the Great Victory” electronic collection, a separate selection “Defence and Siege of Leningrad”, a virtual tour of the exhibition halls of the temporarily closed State Museum of Defence and Siege of Leningrad, as well as a virtual tour of the museum “Kobona: Road of Life”.