The Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141, composed between late 1970 and July 29, 1971, is the final symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich. He began to plan and sketch the symphony, originally intended as a cheerful commemoration of his 65th birthday, in late 1970. After completing the sketch score in April 1971, he began the orchestration in June, during his medical therapy in Kurgan. The symphony was completed on July 29 at his summer dacha in Repino. This was followed by a prolonged period of creative inactivity that did not end until the composition of the Fourteenth Quartet in 1973.

The Fifteenth Symphony was first performed privately in a reduction for two pianos for members of the Union of Soviet Composers and invited guests in August 1971. Its scheduled world premiere in September was postponed after Shostakovich had his second heart attack earlier that month. After a two-month hospitalization, he recovered enough to attend rehearsals in late December 1971 for the rescheduled premiere, which took place in Moscow on January 8, 1972, performed by the All-Union Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maxim Shostakovich. The first performance outside the Soviet Union took place in Philadelphia on September 28, 1972, by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. Immediate critical reaction to the symphony was positive in the Soviet Union, but mixed in the West.

Shostakovich's extensive use of musical quotation in the Fifteenth has attracted speculation. He initially likened the first movement to a toyshop, but later cautioned listeners against taking his description too precisely. A quotation from Gioacchino Rossini's William Tell Overture recurs throughout the first movement, while the last movement quotes a song by Mikhail Glinka and Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung and Tristan und Isolde. Critics have also detected more quotations and allusions, from other composers as well as Shostakovich's own music.

Background Origins Shostakovich began to prepare the Fifteenth Symphony in late 1970; he originally envisioned it as a present to himself for his 65th birthday. He wrote to Boris Tishchenko that he wanted to write a "merry symphony". By no later than April 2, 1971, Shostakovich completed a sketch outline of the symphony that was sparsely notated and made extensive use of shorthand. The sketch manuscript totals 18 pages. It also includes sketches for "Yelabuga Nail", an unfinished setting of a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko about the suicide of Marina Tsvetayeva.

Composition In June 1971, Shostakovich continued treatment for his poliomyelitis at the clinic of Gavriil Ilizarov in Kurgan, where the composer had been a patient since 1968. While there he began the final draft of the symphony. He wrote to his friend, the writer Marietta Shaginyan, that he was on the "verge of tears" from work:

Tears flowed from my eyes not because the symphony was sad, but because my eyes were so exhausted. I even went to an ophthalmologist who suggested that I take a short break. The break was very hard for me. It is annoying to step away when one is at work.

Similarly, Shostakovich told Sofia Khentova, his official biographer, that his pace of work on the symphony did not permit him rest. "It was a work which simply grabbed me, one of the few which appeared in my mind with total clarity from first note to last", he continued. "There was nothing left for me to do but write it down". Veniamin Basner, in contrast, recalled that Shostakovich complained to him that completion of the finale progressed too slowly.

Upon completion of medical treatment in Kurgan, Shostakovich continued to write the symphony at his summer dacha in Repino. He was visited there on July 13 by his friend, the critic and arts administrator Isaak Glikman. Shostakovich told him that he had completed the first two movements and was working on the third, but had not yet been able to compose a finale. The problem, Shostakovich told Glikman, brought to mind parallels he discerned between the Fifteenth and Ninth symphonies, particularly what he believed was their shared lack of a central idea. Shostakovich completed the Fifteenth on July 29, in Basner's presence. The symphony was his last, as well as his first purely instrumental and non-programmatic symphony since the Tenth.

"The new symphony is still warm and I like it", Shostakovich later told Glikman. "But, perhaps after some time has gone by, I will think about it differently".

Music Instrumentation and timing The Fifteenth Symphony is scored for the following instruments:

Woodwinds Piccolo 2 Flutes 2 Oboes 2 Clarinets in A 2 Bassoons

Brass 4 French horns 2 Trumpets 3 Trombones Tuba

Percussion 4 Timpani Triangle Castanets Woodblock Whip Tom-Tom (soprano) Snare Drum Cymbals Bass Drum Tam-Tam Glockenspiel Xylophone Vibraphone

Keyboards Celesta

Strings 1st Violins 2nd Violins Violas Cellos Double Basses

Notwithstanding the large percussion section, the piece is scored for a smaller ensemble than the one needed to play Shostakovich's First. The composer indicated in the score that the number of instruments listed were the minimum required, but "if there are more, then it would be better".

A typical performance lasts approximately 45 minutes.

Structure The symphony consists of four movements, the middle two played attacca.

Description The first movement begins with two chimes on the glockenspiel, followed by a five-note motif on solo flute, accompanied by pizzicato strings. This leads into a galloping motif for trumpet constructed out of all twelve notes of the Western chromatic scale. Hugh Ottaway observed that Shostakovich's use of such motifs in this symphony create an "enlarged tonal field in which 'chromatic' and 'diatonic' cease to be meaningful distinctions". Recurring five times in the movement are quotations from the William Tell Overture by Gioacchino Rossini.

The second movement begins with a brass chorale, followed by a cello solo. These themes alternate with a funeral march introduced by a pair of solo flutes, then taken up by a solo trombone. Sounding several times are what musicologist Iosif Raiskin calls the "chords of death". This builds to a climax, after which the opening chorale is reprised on muted strings, then fades away on a timpani roll, after which bassoons announce the start of the scherzando third movement.

The finale contains several musical quotations, starting with the "fate motif" from Götterdämmerung, followed by the opening motif fromTristan und Isolde. This segues into a reminiscence of Mikhail Glinka's song "Do Not Tempt Me Needlessly". A passacaglia theme, whose resemblance to the march from Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony has been noted, is introduced and builds to another climax. The "chords of death" from the "Adagio" announce the symphony's coda. This is followed by a restatement on celesta of the symphony's opening motif. An open A-major chord, sustained over a percussion part that recalls the scherzo of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, is finally resolved by a three-octave C that concludes the work.

Arrangements After completing the orchestral score, Shostakovich arranged the symphony for two pianos in order for it to be auditioned at the Union of Soviet Composers. It was first performed there in early August 1971 by Boris Tchaikovsky and Mieczysław Weinberg. Although Derek C. Hulme said the arrangement was completed on January 4, 1972, this is disputed by the editors of the new complete works edition of the arrangement, who say it contradicts the documented performance history. The manuscript of the arrangement is not dated.

In August 1972, the pianist Viktor Derevyanko, with assistance from the percussionist and composer , produced a chamber arrangement of the Fifteenth Symphony. It is scored for violin, cello, piano (alternating with celesta), and percussion. Shostakovich approved this arrangement and designated it Op. 141a.

Premieres Shortly after Shostakovich completed the Fifteenth Symphony, he informed his son, the conductor Maxim. Shostakovich's first choice to lead the symphony's premiere, Kirill Kondrashin, developed severe heart problems in mid-1971 and was unable to conduct. Therefore, the composer entrusted the first performance to Maxim.

The completed score of the Fifteenth Symphony was sent to copyists at the Union of Soviet Composers by September 9 in preparation for its world premiere, which had been announced for late 1971. On September 17, Shostakovich suffered his second heart attack, which postponed the premiere. He stayed in the hospital until November 28, whereupon he was released to continue recovery at a sanatorium in Barvikha. Despite continued weakness in his arms and legs, Shostakovich's health improved sufficiently for him to attend rehearsals for the rescheduled premiere.

The symphony's world premiere occurred on January 8, 1972, at the Large Hall of the Moscow Conservatory; it was performed by the All-Union Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maxim Shostakovich. He also conducted the British premiere with the New Philharmonia Orchestra on November 20, 1972.

Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy vied to conduct the first performance of the Fifteenth Symphony in the United States. The rights were ultimately granted to the latter, who conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in the symphony's American premiere on September 28, 1972.

Chamber arrangement The chamber arrangement by Derevyanko and Pekarsky of the symphony was premiered on October 30, 1972, at the All-Union House of Composers in Moscow. It was performed by Valeria Vilker (violin), Mark Drobinsky (cello), Derevyanko (piano), Alla Mamyko (percussion), (percussion), and B. Stepanov (percussion).

Reception Soviet Union

Upon hearing its first performance, Shostakovich remarked that he had composed a "wicked symphony". It was received with an ovation by the audience at its premiere. Marietta Shaginyan was among the symphony's admirers. After the premiere, she met with Shostakovich at the hall's green room and made the sign of the cross over him. "You must not say, Dmitri Dmitrievich, that you are not well", she told him. "You are well, because you have made us happy!"

Nevertheless, despite the positive reception of the Fifteenth Symphony at its premiere, and the puzzlement it provoked, it generated a more muted response in the Soviet Union compared to the Thirteenth and Fourteenth symphonies. The American musicologist Richard Taruskin, who was an exchange student at the Moscow Conservatory, attended the symphony's premiere. He recalled in a 2001 essay for The New Republic:

[The symphony] was not much liked, actually. But the outpouring of love that greeted the gray, stumbling, begoggled figure of the author, then sixty-five and beset by a multitude of infirmities, was not just an obeisance to the Soviet composer laureate. It was a grateful, emotional salute to a cherished life companion, a fellow citizen, and fellow sufferer, who had forged a mutually sustaining relationship with his public that was altogether outside the experience of any musician in [the West].

Tikhon Khrennikov, general secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers, called the symphony one of Shostakovich's "most profound"; he added that it was "full of optimism [and] belief in man's inexhaustible strength". Yevgeny Mravinsky, who conducted the symphony's Leningrad premiere, believed the work to be autobiographical. While studying the score, he told his wife that he was emotionally overwhelmed by the music.