Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 43 (1935)

First performance: 30 December 1961, Moscow, Large Hall of the Conservatoire Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra – Kirill Kondrashin (conductor).

The Fourth Symphony was written in 1935-1936.1 Its premiere was scheduled for 11 December 1936. The rehearsals began under the supervision of Fritz Stiedry, who directed the Symphonic Orchestra of the Leningrad Philharmonic at that time. But after two rehearsals, Shostakovich removed the symphony from the repertoire on Director of the Leningrad Philharmonic Renzin’s insistence, who, not wishing to resort to administrative measures, had asked the author to remove the symphony from the repertoire himself.

The whereabouts of the author’s manuscript of the score to the Fourth Symphony is unknown. During the second half of the 1930s, conductor Alexander Gauk had the author’s manuscript (he also had the author’s manuscripts of the scores to the Fifth and Sixth symphonies). Later, Gauk told Shostakovich that the suitcase with these manuscripts had been stolen during the journey. For Shostakovich the score was considered lost. The score was restored in keeping with the original orchestra parts on the initiative of Levon Atovmian by the librarian of the Music Library of the Leningrad State Philharmonic, B.G. Shalman. The only copy of the restored manuscript score was kept in the same library. Conductor Kirill Kondrashin, who was asked to perform the symphony in 1961, at first had to acquaint himself with it from the glass duplicated edition (1946) of the arrangement for two pianos. During a meeting about the proposed premier, Shostakovich said: “Please give me the four-hand arrangement. My original score has been lost, the copy is in Leningrad. I have forgotten a great deal in this symphony and must look at it.” The score copy restored by Shalman, according to which the premiere was performed, apparently also became the basis for the first publication of the Fourth Symphony (Sovetsky kompositor Publishers, Moscow, 1962).

As Manashir Yakubov explains in the commentary of Vol. 4 of DSCH New Collected Works, the composer was forced to give up performing his Fourth Symphony under pressure from the Communist Party, and the première, originally scheduled for 11 December 1936 (Vol. 19 gives 21 November), was canceled. According to Kirill Kondrashin, the score was lost during the siege of Leningrad. It was reconstructed later from the parts by Boris Shalman, the librarian of the Leningrad Philharmonic. Erna Meskhishvili states that work on Op. 43 was finished on 20 May 1936. Volume 2 of Muzyka Collected Works prints a facsimile of a full score page headed ‘Symphony No. 4’, probably composed in 1934 (Yakubov), which does not correspond to the present work. This symphonic torso (4[picc].4[cor anglais].4[Eb cl, bass cl].4[db bn] – 8.4.3.1 – timp. tam-t. strings [Adagio – Allegro non troppo]) which suddenly breaks off after 137 bars, was probably conceived as a Fourth Symphony. A small portion (bars 119-131) was incorporated into the final movement of Op. 34 (bars 119-131). The music (score printed in Vol. 3 of DSCH New Collected Works) was never heard until its first performance in 1986 in Moscow, conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky.

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1. Allegro poco moderato – Presto
2. Moderato con moto
3. Largo – Allegro