While Rachmaninoff had kept the score of the First Symphony safely in his Moscow flat until the October Revolution, he had made no attempt to collect the orchestral parts in his haste to leave St. Petersburg in 1897. This fact would prove fortuitous in the symphony's ultimate fate. Shortly after the composer's death, in 1944, the instrumental parts of the symphony were discovered by chance in the Belyayev Archive of the Leningrad Conservatory Library. Using these parts and the two-piano arrangement, a group of scholars headed by prominent Russian conductor Aleksandr Gauk reconstructed the full score. The second performance of the piece, considered a success, took place at the Moscow Conservatory on October 17, 1945, conducted by Aleksandr Gauk.