Sets the composition of Shostakovich's most famous work against the tragic canvas of the World War II Leningrad siege and the years of repression and terror that preceded it. The story of the cruelties heaped by the twin monsters of the 20th century, Stalin and Hitler, on a city…
Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was first played in the city of its birth on 9 August, 1942. There has never been a first performance to match it. Pray God, there never will be again. Almost a year earlier, the Germans had begun their blockade of the city. Already many thousands…
Describes the concert played in August 1942 by a cobbled-together group of starving survivors -- who were cold, sick and weak from Stalin's purges and the Nazi invasion of Russia -- which offered a glimmer of hope during the darkest days of World War II.
Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was first played in the city of its birth on 9 August, 1942. There has never been a first performance to match it. Pray God, there never will be again. Almost a year earlier, the Germans had begun their blockade of the city. Already many thousands…
Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was first played in the city of its birth on 9 August, 1942. There has never been a first performance to match it. Pray God, there never will be again. Almost a year earlier, the Germans had begun their blockade of the city. Already many thousands…