Symphony No. 6, Op. 54 in b minor

Shostakovich originally intended his Symphony No.6 to be a monumental homage to Lenin for vocal soloists, choir and large orchestra. Even in the year before its completion, he announced in the press that Vladimir Mayakovsky's poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” was to form the textual basis for it. However, what was finally premiered in Moscow on 21 November 1939 as Symphony No. 6 did not meet these expectations in the slightest; nor was such a “Lenin Symphony” ever published by Shostakovich. The purely instrumental work opens with an expansive, introverted Largo followed by a short Scherzo and a brilliant “music hall gallop”, which Shostakovich considered the most accomplished piece of the symphony.

This volume is part of the revised and corrected new edition of all 15 symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich published by Boosey & Hawkes and Sikorski as large format study scores for optimal legibility. All scores and the related orchestral parts have been newly computer typeset, and the orchestral parts are also compatible for performance use with scores in 'The New Collected Works of Dmitri Shostakovich'.