From the outside, it seemed as though the Moscow première of the Fourteenth Symphony went very well. There were lots of people there, and lots of applause at the end of the performance. But sadly the performance was not as good as in Leningrad. Galina Vishnevskaya got completely lost on two occasions, and once the orchestra fell apart and it was Barshai’s (!) fault. Mark Reshetin sang his part very well. The printed programmes contained the texts of the poems I had used, so the audience was able to follow the words. This is a good thing, since diction is sometimes not very good.