The score of the "Leningrad" Symphony №7 by Dmitry Shostakovich is available to all users of the Presidential Library

The Presidential Library has posted on its portal a digitized copy of a unique document - a manuscript score of the Seventh (“Leningrad”) Symphony by Dmitry Shostakovich, the original of which is stored in the music library of the Radio House. The project became possible thanks to the interaction of the National Media Group and the Presidential Library in the field of preserving the historical memory, inextricably linked to the annals of the Leningrad Radio.

This score was also used on the first performance of the symphony on March 5, 1942 in Kuibyshev by the USSR State Academic Bolshoi Theater orchestra conducted by Samuil Samosud, and on August 9, 1942 - by the orchestra of the Leningrad Radio Committee under the conductor Karl Eliasberg in besieged Leningrad. The Seventh Symphony exerted a great influence on the moods of the inhabitants of the besieged city and played a part in the negotiations of the Soviet command with the Allies about the opening of the second front.

The handwritten score to convert into the electronic form and to post on the portal was transferred to the Presidential Library by the director of the broadcasting department of the television and radio company "Petersburg" Yuri Radkevich at the solemn event dedicated to the heroic defence of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War, the 75th anniversary of the breakthrough of the blockade and the 74th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the fascist blockade.

Each of the four parts of the symphony is presented in a separate notebook. The pages of the score contain conductors S. A. Samosud and K. I. Eliasberg notes, made with ink and colored pencils. On the back of the title page of the first notebook there is the composition of the orchestra (instruments) and information about the first performance.

Now, not only musicians, biographers, musicologists, but also all visitors of the Presidential Library portal will be able to get familiar with the score of Shostakovich's brilliant symphony. So you can easily say that a unique document, which became a symbol of the era, gained a second life.