Symphony No. 9 (Shostakovich) Symphony No. 9 (Shostakovich) Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major, Op. 70, was composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1945. It was premiered on 3 November 1945 in Leningrad by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky. The ninth symphony was originally intended to be a celebration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II (see Eastern Front). The composer declared in October 1943 that the symphony would be a large composition for orchestra, soloists and chorus "about the greatness of the Soviet people, about our Red Army liberating our native land from the enemy". On the occasion
Symphony No. 4 (Davies) Symphony No. 4 (Davies) The Symphony No. 4 by Peter Maxwell Davies was commissioned for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra by Christian Salvesen plc and composed in 1989. It is dedicated to the memory of the violinist John Tunnell, who had been leader of the orchestra, and was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall on a BBC Promenade Concert on 10 September 1989, with the composer conducting the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The Fourth Symphony differs from its predecessors in several respects, but particularly for combining the conventional four movements into a single unit, similar to Arnold Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1,