Symphony No. 11, Op. 103 “The Year 1905”

Quick Facts

• Written between 1956-57
• Premiered in 1957 with USSR State SO in Moscow, conducted by Natan Rakhlin
• Comprised of 4 continuous movements
• Programmatic title: “The Year 1905”
  • Composed for the 40th Anniversary of the October Revolution (1917) and programmatically represented the 1905 Bloody Sunday Massacre.¹

About the Piece

• Influenced by the work’s political subject matter, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 contains 12 revolutionary song quotations that would have been familiar to audiences at the time of its premiere.²
• The history told through the music of this work is as follows:
  • 1st Movement “The Palace Square” – the people wait outside the Winter Palace, in the freezing cold of January, for the Tsar to appear. While they wait, they sing songs and hymns. A bugle call is heard, informing the soldiers to start shooting.
  • 2nd Movement “January the Ninth” – the massacre of the peaceful protesters
  • 3rd Movement “Eternal Memory” – the funeral march
  • 4th Movement “The Tocsin (The Alarm)” – the “alarm bell” of the coming storm (i.e. the Revolution)³

1. Laurel Fay and David Fanning, “Shostakovich, Dmitry,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed July 5, 2024,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000052560.
2. Ibid.
3. Howard Posner, “Symphony No. 11 ‘The Year 1905,'” Hollywood Bowl, accessed July 5, 2024, https://www.hollywoodbowl.com/musicdb/pieces/3922/symphony-no-11-the-year-1905.