The Philharmonic, Arts United, Artlink & Allen County Public Library Present “The Siege of Leningrad”

THE PHILHARMONIC, ARTS UNITED OF GREATER FORT WAYNE, ARTLINK, AND THE ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENT "THE SIEGE OF LENINGRAD"

Two-Venue Display Of Art And Photography Will Accompany The Philharmonic’s April 28, 2018 Performance Of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony

FORT WAYNE (April 2, 2018) — The Fort Wayne Philharmonic today announced a unique collaboration with Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, Artlink, and the Allen County Public Library in presenting “The Siege of Leningrad,” an exhibition of artworks, posters, and photographs dedicated to the struggle against Fascism during World War II, depicting aspects of the infamous Siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) by Nazi Germany during World War II. The Siege began in the fall of 1941, lasted some 900 days, and took the lives of more than a million people.

The exhibition is on loan from The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis and is a joint project of that museum and the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg. A portion of the exhibition will be on display in the atrium of the Auer Center for Arts & Culture from April 4 to May 13, 2018. The rest of the exhibition will be shown at the Allen County Library, in downtown Fort Wayne, from April 9 to June 30, 2018.

BACKGROUND TO THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition was arranged by the Philharmonic’s music director Andrew Constantine as an accompaniment to the April 28, 2018 Masterworks concert The Leningrad Symphony, at the Embassy Theatre, which features Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60, known as the “Leningrad” symphony.

Said Music Director Andrew Constantine: “That great music can depict the spirit of an age or event in history has never been more dramatically captured than in the Leningrad Symphony. The stories of the hardships of the citizens of that city under the Nazi siege are both terrifying and uplifting. When I decided to program this amazing piece of music I had a keen desire to be able to tell the fuller story to the people of Fort Wayne. I’m grateful to the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis for lending us the exhibits and to Artlink, Arts United and the Allen County Public Library for their enthusiastic support to make this project a reality. On April 28th you can experience Shostakovich’s overwhelming music for yourself. Before that, and for the following few months, you can see the exhibition of photographs, paintings, sketches and brazenly propagandist poster work that give a visual perspective to this major event of the twentieth century. I very much hope that, like me, you will find both the exhibition and the concert to be a reminder to us all of mankind’s resolve and strength in the face of the greatest adversity.”

THE EXHIBITION’S CONTENTS
The materials of the exhibition tell of life during the Siege and of the winter of 1941-1942, when there was no sanitation, no electricity, and no fuel; no transportation was running, and because of a lack of food, whole families died of starvation and malnutrition. The city was under constant artillery attack and bombardment at the hands of the German air force. Nonetheless, people continued to go to work, to produce products for the front; women and children worked at procuring fuel and growing vegetables in the besieged city. Hospitals, schools, and kindergartens were open where, in the horrible winter of 1941-1942, people received extra food rations. This was of particular importance in December of 1941 when for the non-working population the daily ration was 125 grams of bread.

In January 1942, twenty-six nations signed the United Nations Declaration in Washington, DC, that proclaimed the necessity of defeating fascism, “for the defense of life, freedom, independence, and for the preservation of human rights and justice…” On June 11, 1942, the Soviet-American agreement on the principles of mutual assistance in conducting the war against aggression was signed in Washington, DC. The support of the leading powers played a significant role in the defense of Leningrad. After the defeat of the Nazis, Leningrad was richly greeted and congratulated. In May 1944, the city received a salutatory address from President Franklin Roosevelt on behalf of the American people, which is on display in the exhibition.

Works in the exhibition include propagandist posters, designed by leading artists who remained in Leningrad during the siege, working individually and collectively; a series of photographs by photojournalist Boris Kudoyarov, whose works were widely published after the war and became the official photo chronicle of the blockade; and sketches and lithographs that evoke the harsh conditions in the city. All are reproductions.

EXHIBITION HOURS AND LOCATIONS
The Allen County Public Library will display photographs, lithographs, posters, and other documents from April 9 to June 30, 2018 outside the Art, Music & Media Department at the Main Branch, 900 Library Plaza, Fort Wayne. For information on the Library’s hours and additional details, visit www.acpl.info or call 260.421.1200.

Arts United will display posters and images, curated by Artlink’s Maddie Miller, from April 9 to May 13, 2018 in the Madge Rothschild Atrium of the Auer Center for Arts & Culture, 300 East Main Street, Fort Wayne. For information, hours and additional details, visit www.artsunited.org or call 260.424.0646.

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH AND THE SIEGE

On Sunday, June 22, 1941, the city of Leningrad — the once and future St. Petersburg — was at its most beautiful. It was the height of the famous “White Nights”: the summer-solstice period when the sun hardly sets on this city of the far north and a luminous twilight bathes its historic buildings at midnight. Dmitri Shostakovich was planning to attend a soccer game with friends. He adored the game, and pictures of him cheering and grinning broadly from the stands make a delightful contrast with the usual images of a solemn, suffering creator. On the way to the stadium, he heard on the radio the stunning news that Hitler — despite his pact with Stalin — had invaded the U.S.S.R.

The Germans swiftly overran an unprepared Russia and by July were approaching Leningrad. By late summer, they had choked off all access to the city. On September 4th, bombardment began, and the siege of Leningrad...had officially begun. .... Hitler’s plan was to wipe the city off the face of the earth.... But the city refused to capitulate, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad”, became the symbol of its resistance.

Anxious to defend his beloved hometown, the composer volunteered for the army, but was turned down and finally put in the defensive Home Guard. He dug anti-tank trenches and mounted the roof of the St. Petersburg Conservatory as a fireman to put out incendiary strikes. But the Soviet authorities were not about to allow their most gifted young composer to die fighting a rooftop blaze; despite his willingness, they found every excuse to keep him away from hazardous duty.

For Shostakovich had a much more important role to play for the U.S.S.R. In July 1941, he began composing his Seventh Symphony, which he would dedicate “to the city of Leningrad” on its title page. As the situation deteriorated and major artistic and academic figures were evacuated, Shostakovich refused to leave. By the end of September, he had composed three movements of his massive work. At this point, the government stepped in and ordered him out: he and his family were evacuated to Kuibyshev near the Urals.

This dislocation temporarily stalled work on the Symphony. Living with his family in one cramped room, Shostakovich found it nearly impossible to work while his two small children played noisily nearby. Only in December, when he was able to move into two rooms, was he able to compose the finale.

Immediately, the Seventh Symphony became as much a political event as an artistic one. Seeing they might have a major morale-boosting and international propaganda tool here, the Soviet authorities quickly arranged for its premiere by the evacuated Bolshoi Theatre Orchesta in Kuibyshev on March 5, 1942, broadcast throughout the U.S.S.R. as well as abroad. Russia’s wartime ally, America also clamored for performances. Delivery of the score from Kuibyshev to New York City became a top-priority military effort. Transferred to microfilm, it traveled by plane to Iran, by automobile across the Middle East to Cairo, by air again to Brazil, and then on a U.S. naval aircraft to New York. America’s top conductors fought fiercely for the right to lead the premiere; the winner was Arturo Toscanini, who introduced it on a radio broadcast by the NBC Symphony heard by millions on July 19, 1942.

The most remarkable of the Seventh’s early performances came on August 9, 1942 in besieged Leningrad herself. By this time, the Leningrad Radio Symphony had been reduced by casualties to fewer than 20 able-bodied members, but with its enlarged brass and percussion sections, the Seventh requires an orchestra of more than 100. Players were even tracked down and brought back from the front to fill the ranks; all musicians were given more than their usual starvation rations to give them strength to play the 75-minute-long work. Since Leningrad was under constant heavy bombardment, the Soviet military brought in thousands of artillery weapons to hammer the German siege forces into silence on the day of the concert. Inside the Great Hall of the Philharmonic, a packed audience listened — many with automatic weapons at their sides, more with tears in their eyes — to Shostakovich’s stirring epic of suffering and courageous resolve.

THE PHILHARMONIC CONCERT
The Fort Wayne Philharmonic, conducted by Andrew Constantine, will perform Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony on Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 7:30 p.m. at the Embassy Theatre, as part of the Paul Yergens and Virginia Yergens Rogers Foundation Masterworks Series. Also on the program will be Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35, featuring pianist Alexander Toradze and Principal Trumpet Andrew Lott. Tickets from $19 are available from the Philharmonic box office, 260.481.0777 or online at fwphil.org.