Janáček’s Sinfonietta was completed in 1926, and it was intended to express the "contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination to fight for victory”. In fact, Janáček rearranged his earlier fanfares into a new work and provided it with a relevant message. Glazunov’s Saxophone Concerto was written in the composer’s late Paris period, in 1934, upon quite an assertive request. Although Glazunov’s music was regarded as outdated already at the turn of the century, this piece of his immediately became a vital work of the saxophone literature. Shostakovich had worked on a composition in Lenin’s honour already in the late 1930s, but the war and the arrival of the German troops had disrupted the composition process. In the late 1950s, he again expressed his wish to compose a memorial piece for Lenin’s 90th birthday, but eventually, the final piece was completed only by 1961, with a one-year delay. According to its programme, the symphony focuses on the year 1917 and the events of the revolution and all the thoughts and ideas these events evoke in the mind of a Soviet citizen in retrospect.