Leningrad Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60

Leningrad Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60, symphony by Dmitry Shostakovich, known as “Leningrad.” The work premiered informally on March 5, 1942, at Kuybyshev (now Samara), a provincial city alongside the Volga, where the composer and many of his colleagues were seeking refuge from World War II. Five months later, it would be given in the city whose name it bore under highly dramatic circumstances; the work would come to stand for Russian courage in the face of crisis and still is imagined to represent survival against difficult odds.

Few important compositions ever been performed under quite so trying circumstances as Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7. It was August 9, 1942. Not only was Europe at war, but the German army stood at the gates of Leningrad. So long had the city been under siege that several orchestra members had succumbed to famine during the rehearsal period, and the ensemble, finding itself short of players, put out a call for help. The Russian military officer in command of defense forces released any soldier who could play an orchestral instrument reasonably well long enough for the performance, which was transmitted by loudspeakers around the perimeter of the city, both to hearten the Russian people and to make the point to the Germans that surrender was not at hand. During the concert, empty chairs were placed in the orchestra to represent musicians who had perished before the performance could be given. The Germans initiated an attack just as the concert was beginning, but Soviet commanders ordered their artillery to refrain from firing until the symphony had been played.

That Leningrad performance had not been the symphony’s first hearing. Although he had begun the work in Leningrad the previous summer, that winter, Shostakovich and other prominent cultural resources of the nation had been forcibly evacuated east to the Volga. The symphony was finished in Kuybyshev and premiered with a gathering of the composer’s colleagues on March 5, 1942. Then in a burst of foresight, Shostakovich arranged for the score to be microfilmed. In this form, it was then smuggled to Iran, driven to Egypt, and flown via South America to the United States, where Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony gave it an American premiere on July 19, 1942. So the Leningrad performance was its third hearing, though the first in the city for which it was named.

As for the composer himself, he was unable to attend the American performance in person, but was there in spirit, on the cover of Time magazine, with a photograph of him in fire-fighting gear. Given both his international fame and his near-sightedness, the Russian army had declined to give Shostakovich a front-line post and instead assigned him to a domestic fire-fighting team, quietly informing his colleagues that it was their responsibility to keep him out of harm’s way.

Soviet authorities were quick to declare the symphony a musical depiction of heroic military actions, though Shostakovich himself asserted that it was more emotional than pictorial. Writing in Pravda, a fellow composer wrote that it was “stormy and passionate—like a ceremonial occasion, grand and solemn—as on a national holiday.” The opening Allegretto movement sets powerful themes in contrast to gentler ones, the latter particularly for flute. A distant march develops, complete with snare drum, and growing gradually more fearsome. The procession, more sardonic than grim, is interrupted at times by outbursts of brass. Setting the march energy aside temporarily, Shostakovich brings in mournful themes for strings and an extended solo for bassoon, before closing the movement with a distant recollection of the martial theme.

The second movement (Moderato - Poco allegretto) begins with the second violins, whose theme gradually reappears elsewhere in the orchestra in layers of counterpoint. A short spotlight for oboe adds further color to the textures, which until that point had largely been focused upon strings. The generally flowing spirit of the opening pages yields to increasing restlessness and anxiety, verging on desperation. As the close of the movement approaches, Shostakovich gives a prolonged solo to the oft-neglected bass clarinet, its low and somber voice contrasting nicely with the bassoon, which had been featured late in the first movement.

He does not label the third movement (Adagio) a “funeral march,” but it is essentially that, with grim opening chords, despairing string lines, and a distant march beat developing. A melancholy theme heard first in the flute grows and evolves as it moves to other instruments. Brass and percussion bring a measure of even greater anguish as the movement progresses, though it will close with a return to the weary sorrows with which it had begun.

The last movement (Allegro non troppo) may be a vision of ultimate victory. Opening in a subdued fashion, it gradually builds in determination with a renewed march mood. It is not the despairing march of the Adagio, but rather one of firm resolution, as if to remind listeners of the forces lurking outside the city gates. Poignant passages appear, suggestive of remembered losses, though the last few minutes—built upon a repeating rhythmic fragment in the strings—brings back the firm energy of earlier pages. It is still not quite music of victory, but at least of survival.

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, is indeed a work of heroic scope, more than an hour in length and with an orchestra well supplied with additional winds and percussion. Although it set out to reflect a particular time and place, one can also perceive it in broader terms. Imagine it as a symphony reflecting any people persevering in the face of adversity, and it becomes a work with universal appeal.

After World War II ended, Symphony No. 7 was little played in the Soviet Union, for Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin’s cultural ministry condemned it as pessimistic. Ironically, because Stalin had initially approved of the symphony, it was little played in the West in the early years of the Cold War. It returned to favor in both the West and the Soviet Union during the 1960s, Freed to do so by the perestroika reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet musicologists determined that Shostakovich had used his music to criticize, ever so subtly, the regime under whose shadow his great work had been born.