During the Siege of Leningrad, which lasted from 1941 to 1944, Shostakovich was famously photographed in a fireman’s outfit on the burning rooftops. But he also made (in three days!) a musical contribution to the defence of the city, arranging a series of songs – operatic arias, classical numbers and popular Soviet hits – for voices, violin and cello. The musicians then climbed into the back of a truck and were driven to the front, where they performed to the soldiers.

The songs are not of the ‘Defend the Motherland at all costs’ variety – instead, they are cheeky, folky, insouciant, and very Russian, intended to bring a ray of hope and humour to the cold and hungry troops.

The 27 arrangements, recorded here for the first time, fall into several groups:

Operatic standards (music by Rossini, Beethoven, Bizet, Leoncavallo)

Russian operatic favourites (music by Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Dargomyzhky, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Gurilyov)

Popular Soviet songs (Blatner, Pritzker, Dunaevsky, the Pokrass brothers).

This recording features the young Russian singers and instrumentalists of the Russkaya Conservatoria Chamber Capella, a group recently set up in Moscow to perform and record interesting repertoire.