Symphony No. 3 “The First of May”. Op. 20. Score. Unfinished Symphony of 1934. (Fragment Adagio). Sans op. Score.
Volume 3
2008
Symphony, in one movement marked ‘Allegretto’, for full orchestra
and S.A.T.B. chorus (for the choral hymn finale setting of a poem by Semyon Kirsanov).
Unfinished Symphony of 1934 (Fragment Adagio). Published for the first time.
Edited by Victor Ekimovsky. Explanatory Article by Manashir Iakubov.
Instrumentation:
Piccolo, 2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 2 B flat Clarinets, 2 Bassoons
4 Horns, 2 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, Tuba
Timpani, Triangle, Side Drum,
Cymbals, Bass Drum, Gong
Glockenspiel, Xylophone
S.A.T.B. chorus
Strings
Five-string double-basses required in the symphony; their use is not stipulated in the list of instruments.
Duration:
Approx. 30 min.
Composed:
Summer 1929, at Leningrad.
This edition is based on the text of the symphony published in Vol. 2 of Dmitri Shostakovich’s
Collected Works (Muzyka Publishers, Moscow, 1982). When preparing the score, the following sources were also used:
— author’s manuscript of the score kept in the Russian State Archives of Literature and Art, rec. gr. 653, inv. 1, f. 2266;
— manuscript copy of the score reviewed and corrected by the composer in 1972 kept in the Library of the Sheet Music Centre at the Moscow Union of Composers, No. 6222;
— author’s manuscript of the symphony piano score (Russian State Archives of Literature and Art,
rec. gr. 2048, inv. 1, f. 3);
— lifetime editions of the 1932 score (Muzsektor Gosizdata Publishers, Moscow) and the 1975 score
(Sovetsky Kompozitor Publishers, Moscow).
Inaccuracies and mistakes in previous publications have been corrected without special comments. Any necessary editing additions are given in square brackets.
Shostakovich used five-string double-basses in the symphony (see, for example, bars 486, 487, 694, 877, 883, and 887), without stipulating this fact in the list of instruments.