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p Shostakovich’s life was normally fairly hectic, but 1942 was a particularly strenuous year for him.

p At the beginning of January music lovers in Kuibyshev had a chance to hear Shostakovich playing some of his own pre-war compositions: piano preludes, a piano version of the scherzo from his Fifth Symphony, his Cello Sonata (with the cellist Vladimir Matkovsky), romances based on Pushkin’s poetry (sung by Alexander Baturin), and his Quintet (together with the quartet from the Bolshoi Theatre), By February rehearsals of Shostakovich’^ Seventh Symphony were in full swing at the Palace of Culture in Kuibyshev. The conductor, Samuil Samosud, as always worked carefully and thoroughly. Alexei Tolstoy, who was present at one of the rehearsals, wrote in the newspaper Pravda on 16 February: ’In the large foyer, between the pillars, was seated the orchestra of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre, one of the world’s most accomplished orchestras.’ At the conductor’s stand was Samosud, dressed casually, in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves. Behind him, on a chair, sat Shostakovich, looking like a petulant schoolboy. Leaning on the oak railing of the balcony above them, a fascinated audience looked on in silence. Now, after final adjustments had been made, all four movements were to be played from beginning to end. His hair damp with sweat, Samosud raised his baton, and the violins began their song of the carefree lives of happy men. The Seventh Symphony is dedicated to the triumph of the humane in man. Let us try to understand Shostakovich’s musical imagination, which, in those gloomy, menacing Leningrad nights, in the thunder of exploding bombs and the glow of fires, led him to create this outspoken work.

p The Seventh Symphony rose from the conscience of the Russian people, who unhesitatingly went into battle against the forces of darkness. Written in Leningrad, it has the stature of great, universal art, understandable all over the world because it tells the truth about man in these unprecedented times of calamities and ordeals. The symphony is transparent despite its great complexity, severe yet lyrical in a masculine way, and looks forward to the future, which stretches out beyond the victory of man over animal... Shostakovich put his ear to the heart of the motherland and played the triumphal hymn. Such were the thoughts and feelings which possessed us when we were listening to the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre rehearsing Shostakovich’s ’Seventh Symphony in Kuibyshev*

p At 11 o’clock in the morning on 27 February the final rehearsal of the symphony took place. On 1 March the symphony was played to an invited audience of soldiers, commanding officers, political workers from the local garrison, factory and office workers, and the town’s Party activists. The official premiere on 5 March was broadcast over all the country’s radio stations, like the most important government announcements.

p Not long after this, Shostakovich left for Moscow. Here, in the Columned Hall of the Trade Union House on 29 and 30 March, Samuil Samosud conducted the Seventh Symphony again. In the audience were many front-line soldiers, and also many important names from Soviet artistic circles. During the first concert an airraid siren was heard, but no one, except air-defence soldiers, left the hall. ’A Symphony of Struggle and Victory’ was the headline in Vechernaya Moskva on 30 March. The newspaper published comments by members of the audience, including the pianist Lev Oborin, who wrote: ’/ heard the performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony in Kuibyshev, and last night I had the great pleasure of attending the Moscow premiere of this remarkable new work...

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p ’Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony is unquestionably a masterpiece of Soviet music,
’It is brilliant from the point of view of composition.
’Its dimensions are titanic.
’Its integrity is monolithic.
’Its orchestration is exceptionally vivid.”

p Thus began the concert life of the Seventh Symphony, which soon gained widespread popularity. On 9 July the work was played in Novosibirsk by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, under Yevgeny Mravinsky. Shostakovich attended the performance, and also took part in a chamber concert in which his compositions were performed by the singer Veniamin Arkanov and the Glazunov Quartet.

p August saw the historic premiere of the Seventh Symphony in Leningrad, where the score was flown in specially by plane. To augment the only remaining orchestra in the city—the Radio Orchestra—the Army Command recalled professional musicians from the front. The date of the concert was set for 9 August—the day Hitler’s troops were planning to take the city. Despite the conditions of cold and near starvation, the hall of the Philharmonia was packed. To everyone’s surprise, the now already familiar sound of gunfire died down: it was only later discovered that the Commander of the Leningrad front, L. A. Govorov, had given orders for the Soviet artillery to silence the enemy’s weapon emplacements...

p In November the orchestra of the Moscow Conservatoire conducted by Grigory Stolyarov performed the symphony in Saratov. The score was also published at this time.

p The work aroused great interest abroad, especially in the USA. Long before it was even finished, the best American conductors, Koussevitzky, Rodzinski, Stokowski, Ormandy and Kindler, and the Mexican Carlos Chavez, all began to vie for the privilege of being the first to conduct it. Leopold Stokowski wrote in a letter to the Soviet ambassador that the performance of this new work would be a great musical pleasure for the American audiences. Artur Rodzinski wrote that a successful performance of the Seventh Symphony could achieve as much as several armaments transportations, the only difference being that it could achieve its aim safely-and more effectively.

p On 1 June a microfilm of the score was flown to the USA, and in 25 days American musicians had ten copies of the music at their disposal. Shostakovich bestowed on Arturo Toscanini the honour of being the first to conduct his work in America. On 19 July the orchestra on the National Radio Corporation under Toscanini performed the Seventh Symphony in a New York radio studio, from where it was broadcast by other radio stations to the whole country. Indroducing the broadcast, E. Carter, the president of an organisation collecting money for Russia’s war effort, said Mat the Americans’ awareness of their duty before the Russian people would grow even greater upon hearing this music, born of their struggle. About 20 million people heard the symphony.

p The radio premiere was followed by many concert performances in several American cities, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky, Leopold Stokowski, Pierre Monteaux, Artur Rodzinski, Dmitri Mitropoulos, Eugene Ormandy and others. The symphony was also heard in London, conducted by Sir Henry Wood, in Mexico under Carlos Chavez, and in Stockholm by Issay Dobrowen.

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p Shostakovich was living a hectic life, dividing his time between Moscow and Kuibyshev, between composing, giving concerts, and attending to his various public duties. At the beginning of April he took part in the Second Pan-Slavic Conference in Moscow, at which he delivered an impassioned speech. That autumn Shostakovich applied himself to his work as Chairman of the Composers’ Union, which involved frequent trips from Kuibyshev to the capital. In September he attended a concert in .Moscow given by the pianist Vladimir Sofronitsky, in October he wrote a suite ^called ‘Jvfy—Leningrad’ for the Song and Dance Ensemble -of the NKVD, and ^attended their rehearsals, and in December he was made a member of the Artistic ’Council of the Moscow Conservatoire, where he started teaching the following year.

p The composer devoted considerable time to an opera entitled The Gamblers, based on the unabridged text of Gogol’s comedy of the same name. Although the work was never completed, Shostakovich thought it necessary to give it an opus number (69); the part of the opera which was completed was first heard in Leningrad in 1978, conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky. In 1942 Shostakovich also wrote six romances for bass and piano, based on English poems.

p Shostakovich was awarded the Stalin Prize (First Class) again this year, this time for his Seventh Symphony. He was also given another state honour for his services to the arts in the Russian Federation.

I am extremely satisfied with the performance. The excellent orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre with its conductor Samuil Samosud played the work superbly. The fate of the symphony—which was written under the impression of the Leningraders’ heroic defence of their city, and is dedicated to these valiant Sovie! patriots-is in capable hands.^^1^^

p My Seventh Symphony will be performed today for the first time in Moscow, in the Columned Hall of the Trade Union House. It is to be played by the combined orchestras of the Bolshoi Theatre and the Radio Committee, conducted by Samuil Samosud. The members of the orchestra and the conductor have all done a great deal of preparation for the performance and have coped beautifully. My intentions have been brilliantly put into practice by these excellent musicians.

p For any Soviet composer the Moscow premiere of one of his compositions is an event of the utmost importance. On this happy day, I would like to describe some of my thoughts about the Seventh Symphony. I began work on the symphony at the end of July 1941, and finished it in December of that year. It turned out to be a large-scale work, lasting one hour and twenty minutes. It was written under the influence of the sinister events of 1941. The Nazis’ cunning and perfidious attack on our motherland closed the ranks of our people in the fight to repel the evil enemy. The Seventh Symphony is a poem about our struggle and about our coming victory.

p The events of 1941 raised the question of the role of culture in times of 94 war. The war we are waging against Nazism is the justest of wars. We are defending the freedom, honour and independence of our country. We are struggling for the greatest ideals in the history of mankind. We are fighting for our culture, our science, our art, for everything we have created and built. And the Soviet artist will never stand on the sidelines when reason and obscurantism, culture and barbarity, light and darkness are engaged in mortal combat.

p Almost the whole symphony was written in my home town of Leningrad. Enemy raiders were breaking through our defences. The city was subjected to bombing from the air and artillery fire from outside. All the Leningraders joined forces and together with the Red Army swore to repel the enemy.

p During this time I worked on my Seventh Symphony. I worked quickly and intensively. I wanted to compose a piece about today, about our life and our heroic people, fighting and conquering the enemy. Working on the symphony, I thought about the greatness and heroism of our nation, about mankind’s greatest ideals, about the finest human qualities, about the beautiful scenery of our country, about humanism and beauty. It is in the name of all this that we are fighting this cruel war.

p I completed the symphony on 27 December 1941. It was premiered in Kuibyshev on 5 March, and on 29 March it will be played in Moscow, the heart of our motherland.

p The whole of our country is keenly interested in culture. Even during these difficult war days new musical works are being learned and performed. New plays are being put on in the theatres. Artists arc working on new paintings.

In wartime our culture is developing and moving forward. Artists, musicians and writers, together with the rest of our countrymen, are helping the Red Army rout the enemy. I dedicate my Seventh Symphony to our struggle against fascism, to our coming victon, and to my native Leningrad.^^2^^

p My Seventh Symphony is a programme work, charged with the sinister events of 1941. It has four movements. The first movement tells of’how the evil force of war broke into our peaceful, wonderful life. I did not try to depict naturalistic war sounds (the noise of aeroplanes, the rumble of tanks, the whistle of bullets): it is not a battle-piece. I wanted to convey the essence of the terrible events.

p The exposition of the first movement tells of the happy lives of our people, their confidence in themselves and in their future-the kind of life that before the war thousands of Leningraders, indeed all our countrymen, were leading.

p The theme of war can be heard through the whole of the middle section.

p A central position in the first movement is occupied by a funeral march, or rather, a requiem for the victims of the war. The Soviet people honour 95 the memory of their heroes. After the requiem comes an even more tragic episode. I do not even know how to describe this music. Perhaps it contains a mother’s tears, or even that,feeling when one’s grief is so great that there are no tears left. After a long bassoon solo, describing the suffering of friends and relations of those who perish in the war,’comes the bright, lyrical conclusion to the first movement. Only at the very end can the theme of war be heard again in the distance, reminding us of the struggle still to come.

p The second movement is a lyrical scherzo, which contains recollections of pleasant, happy events. Underlying this, there is a trace of sadness and meditation.

p The third movement is an emotional adagio. Ecstasy in life and admiration of nature-these are the main themes running through this movement, which flows into the fourth without a break. The first and the fourth movements are the most important in the composition. The first is the struggle, the fourth the impending victory. The fourth opens with a short introduction, followed by the exposition of the stirring first theme. The second theme, triumphal in mood,"is the climax of the entire composition. The climax develops peacefully and assuredly, culminating in the grand, joyful sound of the finale.

p Such are the thoughts which I should like to share with the listeners of my symphony.

... During the Great Patriotic War our writers, artists and musicians are working hard and prolifically, because they are inspired by the most progressive ideas of our age. And as the cannons roar, our muses also raise their mighty heads. No one shall ever wrench the pen from our hands.^^3^^

p Hitler and his criminal gang proclaimed to the whole world that the Slavs were an inferior race, historically determined to be slaves. The meaning behind this presumptuous nonsense is perfectly clear: the fascists hate the Slavs as they hate any talented nation, endowed with clearness of thought and noble human aspirations. I am proud to be Russian. I am proud to be a son of the people which gave birth to the great Lenin. I am proud to belong to the Slavonic race which gave the world giants of literature such as Pushkin and Tolstoy. I am proud that my blood brothers, the Poles, produced Mickiewicz, and that my fellow Slavs, the Serbs, created the epos, a genre which has been a source of pleasure for all civilised humanity down the centuries.

p As a musician I am proud that my country’s music occupies a most honourable position in world musical culture. Glinka, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Chaikovsky - all sons of Russia-are great composers who have delighted audiences for over a century now. The Slavonic peoples have played a very important role in the cultural development of man-’ kind. The Slavs are a very musical race. Their melodies have always served as a source of inspiration for the greatest musicians: suffice to 96 mention Beethoven’s famous ‘Rissian’ Quartets, or Brahms’ numerous adaptations of Serbian songs. Think of the exquisitely beautiful Polish folk music, which nourished the genius of Chopin, think of the Czech composers Dvorak, Smetana and Janacek, or of our great Polish contemporary Karol Szymanowski...

p The task facing us today is to create music about the present, about the important events now taking place. These works should be topical, pointed and captivating. But topicality does not imply less artistic integrity in a work. Topicality must be harnessed by talent. Moreover it should not only be short pieces that we are composing, but also largescale, monumental works. We should learn from the great artists of the past how to serve one’s nation in its years of tribulation,

p We have already done a certain amount of good, but we must create more and better works. We value the future too highly to be able to rest on our laurels. A great writer was once asked, ’Which of your works do you consider the best?’ His answer was ’I haven’t written it yet.’ We too must never sit back, but always strive towards greater success. Our successes should spur us on to greater achievements and better work. As Soviet musicians we should stubbornly seek out new styles. We should advance further and further, tirelessly perfecting, never stopping for a moment, never forgetting that our art is serving our people and that it is one of the weapons in the struggle against the enemy and in forging peace.

p We enjoy the support of the state, and are surrounded with care and attention by the government and the people. We must justify their confidence in us and the hopes they have placed on us. Forward into victorythis is the motto of Soviet musicians, the inheritors of the great traditions of world musical culture.

In his work Mozart and Salieri, Pushkin ascribes the following words to Mozart; ’Genius and evil are incompatible.* This always comes to mind when I think of the fate of Soviet culture, art and music. Our art is equipped with the most humane and progressive ideas. It is full of deep love for our country and a belief in humanism, reason and light. These noble ideas have inspired all thinking people throughout history, and will help us create works which accurately reflect our age.^^4^^

I have put a good deal of my strength and energy into this composition, I have never before worked with such enthusiasm. There is a wellknown expression which runs: ’When the guns roar, the muse is silent.’ This can justly be applied to those guns whose roar suppresses life, happiness and culture. These are guns of darkness, violence and evil. We are fighting for the victory of reason over obscurantism, of justice over barbarity. There can be no nobler or more elevated a task than that which inspires us to fight against the evil force of nazism.

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Today I learned that my latest symphony has been awarded the highest distinction - the Sialin Prize. This gives me new strength.^^3^^

p At the beginning of the war-on 22 or 23 June-1 volunteered to join the Red Army. I was told to wait. I applied again after hearing Comrade Stalin’s speech about the people’s volunteer corps. I was told that I would be accepted, but in the meantime I was to carry on my normal work, I was working in the Conservatoire, the term was nearly over. Classes carried on only till 1 July, and I was teaching and examining students. I did not go away on holiday, and spent day and night at the Conservatoire.

p I approached the people’s volunteer corps for a third time, thinking they had forgotten about me. They were flooded with applications, including one from Professor Nikolayev, who was then seventy.

p I was made director of the musical section of the people’s volunteer theatre. After the war I will write about this theatre, which went off to entertain at the front.

p It was difficult to head the musical section of this theatre, since the only instruments were accordions. I applied to join the Red Army again, and was received by a Commissar. After hearing me out he said it would not be easy to draft me into the army, and advised me to limit my activities to writing music. After that I was dismissed from the people’s volunteer theatre and informed that I was to be evacuated from Leningrad. I did not want to be evacuated because I thought I could be of more use where I was. I had a serious talk about this with the authorities. They said I should go, but I was in no hurry to leave the city, where a true fighting spirit reigned. Women, children and old people acted courageously. I will always remember the women of Leningrad who selflessly struggled to put out incendiary bombs, and in general displayed heroism in every way.

p As for myself, I kept watch on the roof of the Conservatoire as a volunteer fireman.

p I started work on my Seventh Symphony on 19 July. By the 29 September I had finished the third movement. Such was the atmosphere that I wrote the three long movements (52 minutes of music) very quickly. I thought that the speed at which I was writing might have an adverse effect on the quality of the music, but friends who listened to it spoke highly of it.

p The dates are very clear in my head. The first movement was completed on 3 September, the second on 17, the third on 29 September. I worked day and night. I could hear ack-ack guns firing and shells exploding as I worked. But I never stopped writing.

p On 25 September I celebrated my thirty-fifth birthday. I worked particularly hard that day, and I am told that the music I wrote then is particularly moving.^^6^^

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p The thoughts and feelings evoked by Ivan Susanin are now more poignant than ever. One of the strongest is a feeling of fury against our present enemy-Hitler’s Germany-and a feeling of confidence in our strength.

p The fascist plunderers want to destroy our culture. The whole world trembled with indignation on learning of their vandalism at Yasnaya Polyana, Klin, Novgorod and Kanev. We shall never forget Chaikovsky’s trampled manuscripts, and never forgive the monstrous crimes committed at Lev Tolstoy’s estate., Yasnaya Polyana. We shall avenge the atrocities at Tikhvin, Rimsky-Korsakov’s birthplace, and at Kanev, where Taras Shevchenko is buried.

p Many decades have passed since the first performance of Ivan Susanin in St. Petersburg. Glinka’s brilliant ideas have now been realised to full effect on the Soviet stage, and his immortal opera has been heard in all its beauty.

Ivan Susanin, which grew out of the best ideals of the Russian people, has not dated and will never do so. For our people will always cherish the noble, elevated feelings which Glinka’s inimitable genius revealed to us: love of our country and hatred of its enemies.^^7^^

p My entire musical career has been closely linked to the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. Beginning with my First Symphony, which was first performed in 1926, all my new works have been premiered by this excellent orchestra. Fjspecially memorable were the premieres of my Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, wonderfully interpreted by Yevgeny Mravinsky.

p I am happy that this first-rate orchestra is now rehearsing my Seventh Symphony. Judging from their first rehearsals with the conductor, they will give a superb performance. I am eagerly looking forward to the day of the premiere.

I am very glad that I have managed to come to Novosibirsk-one of the industrial and cultural centres of the Soviet Union-to hear the familiar, inimitable sounds of the Leningrad Philharmonia. Many orchestras, both here and abroad, have played my works, but no other has captured my ideas so perfectly.^^8^^

p The way things have worked out, I have recently been separated from my favourite orchestra. It is working in Novosibirsk, and I am living in Kuibyshev. I need hardly describe my joy when I learned that it was interested in my Seventh Symphony. I excitedly set off for Novosibirsk to see my dear friends again.

The first rehearsal I attended took place on 29 June. The concerts were to be given on 9, 11, 12 and 15 July. The orchestra had the symphony ready for performance in ten days-a very short time, considering