Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 9 and The Execution of Stepan Razin, Op. 119

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The Execution of Stenka Razin by Dmitri Shostakovich is a cantata for baritone, chorus and orchestra, written in 1964 and performed for the first time in Moscow, directed by Kondrashin. It is based on the sentence of the Cossack leader, Stenka Razin, a revolutionary champion of the oppressed and peasants of the seventeenth century. Evegenij Yevtushenko wrote the text, he was one of the major Russian poets of the twentieth century. Recordings of this work are quite rare, especially one performed so closely (within two years) to the original production.