Download or read book Leningrad: Siege and Symphony written by Brian Moynahan and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was first played in the city of its birth on 9 August, 1942. There has never been a first performance to match it. Pray God, there never will be again. Almost a year earlier, the Germans had begun their blockade of the city. Already many thousands had died of their wounds, the cold, and most of all, starvation. The assembled musicians - scrounged from frontline units and military bands, for only twenty of the orchestra's 100 players had survived - were so hungry, many feared they'd be too weak to play the score right through. In these, the darkest days of the Se.