I have just completed the symphonic poem October. Briefly, its history is something like this…I had long been intending to write a work for the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution, but nothing had worked out. Then a few months ago I was at the Mosfilm studios, where the Vasiliev brothers’ old film Volochayevka Days, for which I wrote the music, was being prepared for re-release. On hearing it again, I felt that my Partisan Song had turned out not badly in those days. The picture reminded me of it, and quite unexpectedly I ‘heard' the whole of my future symphonic poem, and set about writing it. I composed the main theme afresh- it is marked by the intonations of revolutionary songs- and for the secondary theme I used my old Partisan Song.