The Ninth Symphony was originally intended to be a celebration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
Shostakovich and Sviatoslav Richter played the Ninth Symphony in a four-hand arrangement for musicians and cultural officials in early September 1945.
The premiere, conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky, took place on 3 November 1945 in the opening concert of the 25th season of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, sharing the program with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.
A possible draft for the first movement of the original version of the Ninth Symphony, published as Symphonic Fragment, was conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky on 20 November 2006.
On 20 September 1946, a highly critical article by musicologist Izrail Nestyev was published:[6] What remains to be proposed is that the Ninth Symphony is a kind of respite, a light and amusing interlude between Shostakovich's significant creations, a temporary rejection of great, serious problems for the sake of playful, filigree-trimmed trifles.
But is it the right time for a great artist to go on vacation, to take a break from contemporary problems?The symphony was also coolly received in the West: "The Russian composer should not have expressed his feelings about the defeat of Nazism in such a childish manner" (New York World-Telegram, 27 July 1946).