Symphony No. 7 (Shostakovich)

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Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60, nicknamed the Leningrad Symphony, was begun in Leningrad, completed in the city of Samara (then known as Kuybyshev) in December 1941, and premiered in that city on March 5, 1942. At first dedicated to Lenin, it was eventually submitted in honor of the besieged city of Leningrad, where it was first played under dire circumstances on August 9, 1942, nearly a year into the siege by German forces. The performance was broadcast by loudspeaker throughout the city and to the German forces in a show of resilience and defiance. The Leningrad soon became popular in both the Soviet Union and the West as a symbol of resistance to fascism and totalitarianism, thanks in part to the composer's microfilming of the score in Samara and its clandestine delivery, via Tehran and Cairo, to New York, where Arturo Toscanini conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a broadcast performance on July 19, 1942, and Time magazine placed Shostakovich on its cover...

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