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The Starving Orchestra of Leningrad
How a ragtag band of half-dead Russian musicians flipped off the Nazis
On the last note of the symphony, the audience stood up and broke into a roar of applause: a standing ovation that lasted an hour. The chandeliers were sparkling above the heads of the elegantly dressed attendees, many of whom were in tears; a little girl came up from the audience with a bouquet of fresh flowers and gave it to the director.
If you say it like that, the Leningrad première of Shostakovich’s Symphony number 7 could seem like a dull, stuffy formal occasion like so many others.
But when you think that the year was 1942 and Leningrad was under one of the most gruesome sieges in history — one that would last more than two years and kill 800,000 civilians, more than the bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined — the above-mentioned concert takes on an entirely different meaning.
A Dying City
In the summer of 1942, Leningrad was, quite literally, starving.
German forces had been bombarding the city for nearly a year and nothing could get in or out of it — no…
