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Dmitri Shostakovich’s "Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60", titled Leningrad, was completed in Samara in December 1941 and premiered in that city on March 5, 1942. At first dedicated to Lenin, it was eventually submitted in honor of the besieged city of Leningrad, where it was first played under dire circumstances on August 9, 1942, with the siege by Axis and Finnish forces ongoing. The Leningrad soon became popular in both the Soviet Union and the West as a symbol of resistance to totalitarianism and militarism, thanks in part to the composer’s microfilming of the score in Samara and its clandestine delivery, via Tehran and Cairo, to New York, where Arturo Toscanini led a broadcast performance (July 19, 1942) and Time magazine placed Shostakovich on its cover. That popularity faded somewhat after 1945, but the work is still regarded as a major musical testament to the 27 million Soviet people who lost their lives in World War II, and it is often played at Leningrad Cemetery, where half a million victims of the 900-day Siege of Leningrad are buried. As the successor of Eugen Jochum, Rafael Kubelik, Sir Colin Davis and Lorin Maazel, Jansons has been chief conductor of the two internationally renowned ensembles of the Bavarian Radio since 2003. Mariss Jansons is considered one of the most outstanding podium personalities of our time. Born in 1943 in Riga as the son of the conductor Arvīds Jansons, he completed his musical education (violin, piano, conducting) at the Leningrad Conservatory and passed with distinction. Afterwards he studied in Vienna under Hans Swarowsky and in Salzburg under Herbert von Karajan. The numerous recordings which Mariss Jansons has made up to today with both the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest and the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra document his wide-ranging repertoire. These releases gained many important international prizes, among them a GRAMMY for the “Best Orchestral Perfomance” for the recording of Shostakovitch’s complete symphonies.