Photo: Apple MusicShostakovich: Symphony No. 7 'Leningrad' (Live)
A Concert Inside the Siege
September 1941. German armies encircle Leningrad.
Over the following nine hundred days, nearly a million people starved to death in the city. And in that darkest winter, the score of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony was photographed onto microfilm and smuggled out past enemy lines—then performed by the London Philharmonic in London, its first performance outside Russia.
Yes, you read that right: the London Philharmonic.
So when Kurt Masur stood at the Royal Festival Hall conducting this symphony in 2003, it was not just another performance—the orchestra was playing music written into its own history.
The Invasion Theme
The famous “invasion march” of the first movement repeats the same melody eleven times.
It starts as a whisper from a distant snare drum. Each repetition grows louder, closer, more impossible to ignore—until the whole orchestra thunders like war itself crushing a city.
Some said it depicted the Nazis; Shostakovich himself said it was really about all forces that trample human dignity.
Masur: The Man Who Helped Topple a Wall
Kurt Masur’s name is tied to things beyond music.
In autumn 1989, on the eve of the Berlin Wall’s fall, he walked out of Leipzig’s Gewandhaus and stood before the crowds calling for peace—he was one of the key figures who allowed East Germany’s transition without bloodshed.
He led the Gewandhaus for 26 years, then the New York Philharmonic for 11. And Taiwanese audiences remember him directly: in 1998 he led the NY Philharmonic’s first Taiwan visit—Taipei and Kaohsiung each hosted a concert; he returned to Taipei in 2002; and in 2010 he brought the Orchestre National de France to Taipei and Tainan.
He died in the United States in December 2015, aged 88. This recording from 2003 remains a precious testament to him and the LPO.
Why Listen
Critics describe Masur’s Leningrad as “more Mahler than Shostakovich”—that cold chordal wind at the start of the slow movement blows through ruins.
If you hear this symphony only once, this is a choice with both historical weight and live warmth.
Further Listening
To continue with Shostakovich, Nelsons’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk with the Boston Symphony is his operatic masterpiece; Honeck’s New World offers another symphonic story of land and people.
About the Performer
British orchestra founded in 1932 by Sir Thomas Beecham. Gave the UK premiere of the 'Leningrad' Symphony in 1942. Kurt Masur was its Principal Conductor 2000–2007.
German conductor (1927–2015). Gewandhaus Kapellmeister for 26 years, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic (1991–2002), and a key figure in the peaceful German reunification of 1989.
About the Composer
Soviet composer (1906–1975). Symphony No. 7 'Leningrad' (1941) was composed during the siege of Leningrad and became a worldwide symbol of resistance.
Taiwan Performance History
Conductor Kurt Masur visited Taiwan three times in his lifetime: in 1998 leading the New York Philharmonic's first visit to Taipei and Kaohsiung (the first international classical orchestra to perform in southern Taiwan), again in 2002 with the NY Philharmonic at Taipei's National Concert Hall, and in January 2010 with the Orchestre National de France to Tainan (1/23) and Taipei (1/24). The London Philharmonic's own Asian tours have been limited to China (Beijing's NCPA opening in 2008) without Taiwan stops.