When the symphony was in an early planning stage, Shostakovich titled this initial movement 'War,' a designation that he soon discarded. Its most striking feature occurs some six minutes after its sweeping, urgent opening, when a simple tattoo played by the snare drummer introduces what one critic described as 'a little puppet-like tune' and what later Soviet writers declared to be a 'psychological portrait of the enemy.' (The snare drummer's repetitive part continues for so long — 352 bars — that the composer suggested employing a relief drummer.) The tune begins quietly, even playfully, but in the course of this movement it grows greatly in intensity and darkens considerably in mood, becoming positively Goyaesque in its brutality.

This melody — the source of which remains a matter of conjecture (some trace it to an operetta by Franz Lehár, said to be one of Hitler's favorites, while others believe it to be a masterful distortion of 'Deutschland über alles') — is heard twelve times, and varies only in dynamics and orchestration, in the manner of Maurice Ravel's famous Bolero. Shostakovich expected the comparison. As he told a friend, 'Let them accuse me, but that's how I hear war.'

A few score pages convey a visual representation as well, with notes arranged with an orderly precision suggesting a vast formation marching through Red Square. A portion toward the end of the long movement offers a poignant requiem for the fallen, which one musician likened to a 'mother searching for her dead son on the battlefield.'

A second movement was finished on September 17. By then elements of the Finnish army, which was allied with Germany, were actively threatening Leningrad from the northwest, while Wehrmacht operations south of the city continued to chew up Soviet positions and defensive forces. So serious had matters become that Stalin put his principal military troubleshooter, Red Army General G.K. Zhukov, in command of Leningrad's defense.

Shostakovich later termed this elegiac section (running about half the length of the first) 'life in opposition to war,' and in his early planning scheme titled it 'Memories' or 'Reminiscences.' In a broadcast that day carried throughout the city over Leningrad Radio, the composer said: 'An hour ago I finished the score of two movements of a large symphonic composition. If I succeed in carrying it off, if I manage to complete the third and fourth movements, then perhaps I'll be able to call it my Seventh Symphony. Why am I telling you this? So that the radio listeners who are listening to me now will know that life in our city is proceeding normally.'

For the next twelve days the tempo of combat along the southern approaches to the city was unrelenting; both sides finally halted in mutual exhaustion in late September. Casualties were high for attackers and defenders. Yet on September 29, Shostakovich finished his symphony's third movement, an adagio, or slow movement. Originally titled 'Our Country's Wide Vistas' or 'Native Expanse,' it has been described as some of the most beautiful music written by Shostakovich, who was not known for his tender moments. Said critic Kenneth Furie, 'The 'Adagio' of the Seventh speaks, like perhaps no other piece of music, for victims — for the innocents who have been stripped of hope and reduced to their last shred of dignity.' The next day, September 30, Shostakovich was ordered to leave Leningrad. He departed the city with his wife and two children, taking a plane to Moscow on October 1. Even as Soviet officials uprooted and transported essential armaments industries eastward, away from the advancing German armies, they also acted to protect their cultural treasures. There had already been several waves of evacuations of important artistic material and personnel from Leningrad before Shostakovich received his peremptory instructions to fly out of harm's way.

Since Moscow itself was under a direct threat from the advancing Germans, the composer and his family soon had to flee once more, packed aboard a refugee train. Shostakovich brought with him just three scores: Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, his own opera Lady Macbeth, and the manuscript for his new symphony. The last was briefly misplaced during the hectic, chaotic journey, but was recovered without having suffered any damage. On October 22, Shostakovich and his family detrained at the reserve Soviet capital, Kuybyshev (present-day Samara), the location of one of several centers established for artistic Soviet refugees.

The disruption caused by the hurried evacuation broke Shostakovich's concentration. Even though his public pronouncements were positive, Shostakovich was stymied. 'You know, as soon as I got on that train, something snapped inside me,' he told a friend. His writer's block was due in part to the travel, but more so to the crowded living conditions in Kuybyshev, where he, his family, and a piano were all crammed into a one-room apartment. Not until December 10, when Shostakovich was able to obtain a separate room in which to work, was he able to begin composing the symphony's finale.

In distant Leningrad, where members of Shostakovich's family remained, military matters had not improved. With a determined German thrust toward Moscow underway, Stalin recalled Zhukov while, at the same time, ordering Leningrad's defenders to strike back. The result was a series of localized offensives beginning in mid-October. The attacks, which added to the growing casualty lists, merely sustained the status quo. Cold and snow at last slowed the pace of events. By the end of December, Leningrad remained a Soviet citadel, but it was closely invested and about to endure the darkest, deadliest winter in its history.

It was during a small party for friends in Kuybyshev, on December 27, that Shostakovich announced he had finished his Seventh Symphony, now dedicated 'To the City of Leningrad.' The fourth and final movement was roughly sixteen minutes long — longer than the second but shorter than the third. Origi-nally called 'Victory,' the section exuded grim determination and conviction, dispensing with any heroic flourishes or morale-boosting bombast. (The composer also ignored a suggestion to conclude with a choral section singing Stalin's praise.) There were no overt gestures to the masses, just a resolute struggle that ends with the victor grimly satisfied but not celebratory. Nonetheless, Pravda dutifully proclaimed that the ending represented 'the triumph of light over darkness.' In its final bars, a rhythmic allusion is made to the most famous victory music of World War II: The dot-dot-dot-dash opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

The state's cultural propaganda machinery immediately began organizing a performance in Kuybyshev, using the pit band of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater, which had been evacuated there. Conductor Samuil Samosud, better known for his operatic work than for symphonic concerts, was given the task, and by late January the work was in full rehearsal. Conditions for Shostakovich remained difficult: His apartment lacked sufficient heat, he had problems finding enough music paper for his work, and the news from Leningrad was greatly discouraging.

What the Germans could not win by force of arms on the ground they now tried to claim through bombardment and starvation. More than three million civilians were trapped in Leningrad, and they faced one of Russia's harshest winters, with most city services either overwhelmed or destroyed. A tenuous supply line crossing Lake Ladoga allowed a trickle of supplies to reach the starving metropolis. Death was a daily feature on Leningrad's streets, as people perished from starvation, exposure, and enemy action. 'Today it is so simple to die,' recorded a diarist. 'You just begin to lose interest, then you lie on the bed and you never again get up.'

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