Conflicting dates are documented for the composition of
Antiformalist Rayok. According to
Isaak Glikman and the Shostakovich family, the score was begun in 1948, with further revisions in 1957, followed by a finale composed between 1965 and 1968. The finale was not discovered until May 1989 by
Veniamin Basner.
Lev Lebedinsky recalled that the whole work dates from 1957 and that he, rather than Shostakovich, wrote the text. Current scholarship has not verified Lebedinsky's statements. Its first public performance was on 12 January 1989 conducted by
Mstislav Rostropovich at the
Kennedy Center Concert Hall in
Washington, D.C. At this concert, the cantata was sung in English and performed without the finale composed in the late 1960s. The premiere of the work in its original version took place at the
Bolshoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on the composer's 83rd birthday (25 September 1989). In the 1990s,
Vladimir Milman and
Vladimir Spivakov made another orchestral version. This version was recorded in 2003 and released by
Capriccio. ==References==