“Loyalty”. Op. 136.

  The first publications of the cycle came out in 1970, even before the premiere. Three of the ballads—“In Some Immemorial Year”, “People Believing in the Flame” and “On Meetings of the Young Generation”—were published in the journal Sovetskaya muzyka (No. 9, 1970). Following them, the choral score was published (Muzyka Publishers, Moscow, 1970). Two copies of the score of Loyalty without the publisher’s imprint and the above-mentioned music with an inscription by Shostakovich to Ernesaks of 22 March 1970 (with the manufacturer’s trademark “Eesti maaehitusprojekt” Rotaprint, 1970) are kept in Dmitri Shostakovich’s Archive.
  Outstanding choir conductor Vladislav Sokolov included his own arrangement of one of the ballads (“I Want to Learn All about Him”) for children’s choir in the collection Crimson Stars. Songs and Choruses for Schoolchildren (Muzyka Publishers, Moscow, 1979), sending it with the following inscription to Dmitri Shostakovich’s widow: “Dear Irina Antonovna, please accept this collection illumined by the name of our great composer, ever cherished Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich. ”The ballad “In Some Immemorial Year” was included in the collection The Estonian SSR State Academic Male Voice Choir Sings (Sovetsky kompozitor, Moscow, 1983; compiler Olev Oja). In 1985, the cycle was published in Vol. 34 of Shostakovich’s Collected Works (Muzyka Publishers, Moscow). The foreign edition of Loyalty was published in 1999 by Zen-On and G. Schirmer (jointly) and was accompanied by texts of the ballads in Russian and Japanese.

  This edition is based on D. Shostakovich, Collected Works, Vol. 34, Muzyka Publishers, Moscow, 1985, collated with the author’s manuscript kept in Dmitri Shostakovich’s Archive, rec. gr. 1, section 1, f. 211 and the 1970 edition— Muzyka Publishers, Moscow.