Symphony No. 4. Op. 43. Score.

Form:

1. Allegretto poco moderato
2. Moderato con moto
3. Largo—Allegro

Instrumentation:

2 Piccolos, 4 Flutes, 4 Oboes (IV = Cor Anglais), E flat Clarinet, 4 Clarinets (B flat and A), Bass clarinet, 3 Bassoons, Contrabassoon

8 Horns, 4 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, 2 Tubas

6 Timpani (2 Players), Triangle, Castanets, Wood block, Side drum, Cymbals (2 Players—I with drumsticks and II normal mode), Bass drum, Gong

Glockenspiel, Xylophone, Celesta, 2 Harps

Strings

Duration:

Approx. 60 min.

Composed:

The Fourth Symphony was written in 1935-1936.1 Its premiere was scheduled for 11 December 1936. The rehearsals began under the supervision of Fritz Stiedry, who directed the Symphonic Orchestra of the Leningrad Philharmonic at that time. But after two rehearsals, Shostakovich removed the symphony from the repertoire on Director of the Leningrad Philharmonic Renzin’s insistence, who, not wishing to resort to administrative measures, had asked the author to remove the symphony from the repertoire himself.

The whereabouts of the author’s manuscript of the score to the Fourth Symphony is unknown.
During the second half of the 1930s, conductor Alexander Gauk had the author’s manuscript (he also had the author’s manuscripts of the scores to the Fifth and Sixth symphonies). Later, Gauk told
Shostakovich that the suitcase with these manuscripts had been stolen during the journey.
For Shostakovich the score was considered lost.
The score was restored in keeping with the original orchestra parts on the initiative of Levon Atovmian
by the librarian of the Music Library of the Leningrad State Philharmonic, B.G. Shalman. The only copy
of the restored manuscript score was kept in the same library. Conductor Kirill Kondrashin, who was
asked to perform the symphony in 1961, at first had to acquaint himself with it from the glass duplicated edition (1946) of the arrangement for two pianos. During a meeting about the proposed premier, Shostakovich said: “Please give me the four-hand arrangement. My original score has been lost, the copy is in Leningrad. I have forgotten a great deal in this symphony and must look at it.” The score copy restored by Shalman, according to which the premiere was performed, apparently also became the basis for the first publication of the Fourth Symphony (Sovetsky kompositor Publishers, Moscow, 1962).

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 editions were also used:
— the 1962 and 1976 editions of the score (Sovetsky kompositor Publishers, Moscow);
— copy of the 1962 edition of the score with author’s corrections belonging to Gennadi Rozhdestvensky; the glass duplicated edition of the piano score of the symphony (Muzfond USSR, Moscow, 1946);
— the symphony arrangement for piano four hands by Levon Atovmian, which was published
during the author’s lifetime (Sovetsky kompositor Publishers, Moscow, 1969).                                             Any inaccuracies and slips of the pen found in the previous editions are corrected without specification. The necessary editing additions are given in square brackets.