Dmitri Shostakovich – “Leningradskaia”: The End of the Siege and the Triumph of the Spirit

by Nora Hoppe for the Saker blog In Celebration of the End of the Siege of Leningrad… 27th January 1944 Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony was written in 1941, primarily during the Siege of Leningrad by the Nazi forces. When it had its premiere in the war-torn city on 9th August 1942 – performed by the emaciated, surviving musicians of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra that was supplemented with military performers, before a