The Leningrad Blockade Museum

September 16, 1941

"An hour ago I finished the score for the two movements of a large symphonic composition.

If I succeed in bringing it off, that is if I manage to finish the third and the fourth movements, I'll be able to call the work the Seventh Symphony.

Why am I telling you this?

I am telling you this to show that life in our city is normal.

We are all at our battle stations.

Soviet musicians, my dear numberless comrades in arms, my friends!

Remember, our art is in peril. So let us defend our music, let us work honestly and selflessly!"

Dmitry Shostakovich, speaking in a Leningrad Radio broadcast