Symphony No. 2 (Shostakovich) October Revolution in his Twelfth Symphony, subtitled "The Year 1917". The symphony is a short (about 20 minutes) experimental work in one movement; within this movement are four sections, the last of which includes a chorus. In a marked departure from his First Symphony, Shostakovich composed his Second in a gestural, geometric "music without emotional structure" manner, with the intent of reflecting speech patterns and physical movements in a neo-realistic style. This choice may have been influenced at least partially by Vsevolod Meyerhold's theory of biomechanics. Shostakovich placed far more emphasis on texture in this work than he did on
Russian Symphony Concerts Russian Symphony Concerts The idea for the Russian Symphony Concerts was Rimsky-Korsakov's. He had become acquainted with Belyayev at the weekly "quartet Fridays" ("Les Vendredis") held at Belayev's home. Belayev had already taken a keen interest in the musical future of the teenage Alexander Glazunov, who had been one of Rimsky-Korsakov's composition students. In 1884, Belayev rented out a hall and hired an orchestra to play Glazunov's First Symphony plus an orchestral suite Glazunov had just composed. Glazunov was to conduct part of this concert. Seeing he was not ready to do this, Rimsky-Korsakov volunteered to take his place. This