Shostakovich’s 13th Symphony and Yevtushenko’s "Babi Yar" - Benjamin Goodman

One March day in 1962, the young Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, received an unexpected phone call. Dmitri Shostakovich was on the line asking if he had permission to set one of Yevtushenko’s poems to music. The poem, “Babi Yar” // «Бабий Яр», which had been published in 1961, denounces the massacre by the Nazis in 1941 of 34,000 Jews in a ravine near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. It condemned not only Nazi atrocities, but also the Soviet Union’s state-sanctioned anti-Semitism. Officials responded by launching a vicious campaign against the poet and banning readings or new publications of his work. So Yevtushenko was delighted by the famous composer’s moral and artistic support.

The poem had been shown to Shostakovich by his closest friend, Isaak Glikman and inspired him to compose his magnificent choral Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 113. The Symphony features four other poems by Yevtushenko which criticised various aspects of Soviet life, which Shostakovich also decided to set to music: “Humour” // «Юмор»; “In the Store” // «В магазине»; “Fears” // « Страхи»; and “A Career” // « Карьера». The composer regarded Symphony No.13 as his masterpiece and of all his compositions it was his favourite. The Symphony had its premiere in Moscow on 18 December 1962 and was received with rapturous applause. The authorities then banned it from being performed for the next two years.