Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7, "Leningrad"

Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7, called "Leningrad", is a work brought to completion in wartime and premiered in the most heroic manner imaginable.
On June 22, 1941, German troops invaded Russia as part of a plan conceived the previous year, "Operation Barbarossa". By the end of July, the capital Leningrad (i.e. St. Petersburg, then and now) was completely surrounded. The city's siege lasted precisely 872 days, from September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944. It was the longest siege of a city in history and the most costly in terms of civilian and military lives.

Although it is possible that Shostakovich had begun composing the symphony before the invasion, the fact is that when the siege began he was working there, in Leningrad, as a professor at the Conservatory (he was a fireman there during the siege). There he finished the first three movements. Months later, he and his family were evacuated, completing the symphony in Kuibyshev, the provisional capital, on December 27, 1941. Its premiere took place there on March 5, 1942. Astoundingly, five months later, it premiered in the besieged city.

A year after the siege, the only remaining orchestra in the city, the Leningrad Radio Orchestra, was inactive because a number of its members had been wounded or were dead. So when its conductor called its members for the exceptional rehearsal of a new Shostakovich Symphony, only fifteen showed up. Most of them were starving: the wind players fainted after the first few notes. Musicians had to be brought in from the front. The first rehearsals did not last an hour, due to general exhaustion. Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe bombing did not stop.

Shostakovich, a fireman in Leningrad

Music for the enemy ranks

Under these incredible conditions, with only one rehearsal of the complete work achieved only that morning, the Symphony was performed in the Great Hall of the Philharmonic on August 9, 1942. Through loudspeakers installed throughout the city in the direction of the enemy ranks, it could also be heard by German soldiers (and Finns, who also took part in the siege).

[A comprehensive article on the conditions, preparations and logistics involved in this incredible performance can be found here.]

Written in the key of C major, the Symphony is nearly 80 minutes long, and consists of four movements: Allegretto / Moderato (poco allegretto) / Adagio / Allegro non troppo.

The First Movement is presented here, with Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting the Symphony Orchestra of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR, which we assume will have disappeared, or at least, changed its name.

First Movement - Allegretto
The first movement opens with a sweeping, resolute theme that plays an important and prominent part in the Symphony. An ensuing group of themes radiates a relaxed, carefree warmth. In lieu of a development section, Shostakovich instead gives us a protracted orchestral crescendo on a theme over an insistent rhythmic pattern. He called this the “invasion theme,” and, initially, it was interpreted to represent the German invasion of Russia. But Shostakovich was clear about its double meaning – “I was thinking of other enemies of humanity when I composed the theme.” It begins innocently, non-threateningly, soft and seemingly in the distance, and becomes increasingly ominous and terrifying as it gains in volume and proximity. It is one of the most remarkable passages in Shostakovich’s symphonic output; at its climax – distorted, tremendous, horrific – the composer brings back the opening theme, a gesture of defiance and heroism in the face of the invasion.
(This paragraph, taken from LA Phil site).