BBC World Service - Witness History, The Leningrad Symphony (original) (raw)
The Leningrad Symphony
In 1942, starving musicians in the besieged city of Leningrad performed Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, composed especially for the city which was under constant Nazi attack.
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In an act of defiance during World War Two, starving musicians in the besieged city of Leningrad performed Shostakovich's new Seventh Symphony. The piece was composed especially for the city, which had been cut off and surrounded by invading Nazi troops. During the siege an estimated one million civilians died from starvation, exposure, and the bombardment by German forces. Hear archive recordings of Ksenia Matus who played the oboe in the orchestra, and hear from Sarah Quigley, the author of a novel about Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony. Dina Newman reports.
(Photo: Official Soviet picture of Dmitri Shostakovich working on his famous Seventh ("Leningrad") Symphony. AFP/Getty Images)
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