Symphony No. 10

Premiere: December 17, 1953. Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonia. Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Leningrad Philharmonia. Conductor Y Mravinsky.
Duration: 50’.
First Edition:  Score, "Muzgiz" Publishers, Moscow, 1954. Author's arrangement for piano - four hands - 1956.
Premiere abroad:  November 14 and 15, 1954. New York. Orchestra of the New York Philharmonia. Conductor D. Mitropoulos.

Symphony No. 10

     Dmitri Shostakovich wrote Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93, in 1953. No precise data has been found to indicate when he began working on the score. Soon after finishing the symphony, Shostakovich prepared its four-hand piano score.
     The Tenth symphony is the symphony Shostakovich thought over the longest; its initial idea and even some of the thematic sources date back to 1944 and did not reach their fruition until 1953.
     In contrast to many other works, the author’s manuscript of the Tenth Symphony does not contain notes about where it was composed.
     The first performances of the Tenth Symphony took place at the end of 1953. On 16 December, a dress rehearsal was held in Leningrad, on 17 December, the premiere was performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic and on 18 December, the symphony was performed again. The symphony was first performed in Moscow by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra (on 28, 29, 30 December). All of these concerts were conducted by Evgeny Mravinsky.
     On 15 February 1954, the piano version of the Tenth Symphony performed by Shostakovich and Weinberg was recorded at the Moscow Sound-Recording House.
     The score and author’s arrangement of the Tenth Symphony for Piano Four Hands was published by State Music Publishers as early as 1954.
     Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony quickly became one of the most frequently performed Soviet symphonic works.
     In 1954, the Tenth Symphony was performed with invariable success in Kiev, Minsk, Riga, and Ordzhonikidze. In 1956, the Novosibirsk Symphony Orchestra began its season with a performance of the Tenth Symphony under the baton of Arnold Kats.
     The first studio recording of the symphony performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Mravinsky was done on 24 April 1954.
     Soon after the Leningrad world premiere, the first performances of the Tenth Symphony were held abroad: 14 October 1954 in New York (the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos) and 10 April 1955 in London (the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult).
     In 1954, the first foreign gramophone recordings of the Tenth Symphony were done35 in East Germany and in the US.