Shostakovich: Symphony No 13, Op. 113

Description

** Includes reductions for both solo piano and piano 4-hands. **

Shostakovich left on the same evening of the day the last movement was completed (20 July 1962) for Kiev12 to meet Boris Gmyrya, then on 23 July13 he went to Ust-Narva to see Evgeny Mravinsky, who were to participate in the premiere of the symphony. Some time later, however, both musicians declined to perform. So, it can be confirmed that by the time Gmyrya and Mravinsky acquainted themselves with the symphony during the third week of July, the piano score had already been completed. Yevtushenko made special mention of this: "...toward the end of July he [Shostakovich] invited me to visit him and placed on the piano a piano score on which was written ‘Thirteenth Symphony'.

Shostakovich then began the four-hand arrangement of the symphony for piano, which he wrote to Glikman about on 3 August 1962: "I am now doing the arrangement in four hands of the 13th symphony."19 Ten days later in a letter to Levon Atovmian, the composer said, "I have finished the 13th symphony," possibly meaning that he had finished the arrangement.

It is likely that Shostakovich initially did the four-hand arrangement in order to present the symphony at the Union of Composers, the same as he did with his other orchestral opuses—the Ninth, Eleventh, Twelfth and Fifteenth symphonies. However, it has still not been established whether the Thirteenth Symphony was ever performed using this four-hand arrangement.

Author's Arrangement for Voice and Piano

This publication is based on the 1984 edition of the piano score from Dmitri Shostakovich's Collected Works (Volume 9, Muzyka Publishers, Moscow) collated with the author's manuscript of the piano score, the author's manuscript of the score—AS, the 1971 and 1984 editions of the score, and also with the latest, 2011, edition of the score—New Collected Works, Volume 13, DSCH, Moscow.

Author's Arrangement for Voice and Piano in Four Hands

This publication is based on the author's manuscript of the piano score collated with the 1984 edition of the piano score in two hands and the 2011 edition of the score (New Collected Works, Volume 13, DSCH, Moscow).