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The manuscript of the author’s arrangement of the Fifteenth Symphony “for two pianos in four hands” is kept in Dmitri Shostakovich’s Archive. It fills 97 pages of score paper and does not contain any performance directions. There are a few crossings out, while some performance marks and slurs have clearly been introduced later in lighter ink. According to the chronological catalogue of Shostakovich’s works, the author’s arrangement of the Fifteenth Symphony for two pianos was completed on 4 January 1972, but there is no date in the author’s manuscript. Whatever the case, this date contradicts what Sophia Khentova and Krzysztof Meyer mention in their biographical works about Moisey Weinberg and Boris Tchaikovsky playing the symphony on two pianos at the beginning of August 1971.

This publication is based on the lifetime edition of the author’s arrangement for two pianos (Sovetsky kompozitor, Moscow, 1977) collated with the author’s manuscript of the piano score (the Arrangement for Two Pianos [Dmitri Shostakovich’s Archive, rec. gr. 1, inv. 1, f. 70]) and the score (New Collected Works, Vol. 15, DSCH, Moscow, 2012). The enharmonic differences between the score and the piano score in both author’s manuscripts and in the lifetime edition have been left unchanged.

Divided into 15 different "series" or genres, the edition will include nearly all the original works of the composer, and his instrumentation of music by Domenico Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Johann Strauss, Youmans, Braga, Tishchenko, and others.

25% of the New Collected Works will be made up of previously unpublished material: over 80 of his works are being published here for the first time. Many of these previously unknown works could not be published or performed during the composer's lifetime for ideological reasons.

The fifteen "series" within the edition comprise:
I: Symphonies (vols 1-30)
II: Orchestra Compositions (vols 31-37)
III: Instrumental Concertos (vols 38-49)
IV: Compositions for the Stage (vols 50-67)
V: Suites from Operas and Ballets (vols 68-72)
VI: Compositions for Choir and Orchestra (With or Without Soloists) (vols 73-83)
VII: Unaccompanied Choral Compositions/Arrangements of Russian Folksongs (vols 84-86)
VIII: Compositions for Solo Voice(S) With Orchestra (vols 87-90)
IX: Chamber Compositions for Voice and Songs (vols 91-97)
X: Chamber Instrumental Ensembles (vols 98-105)
XI: Instrumental Sonatas(vols 106-108)
XII: Piano Compositions (vols 109-115)
XIII: Incidental Music (vols 116-121)
XIV: Film Music (vols 122-145)
XV: The Works of Other Composers, Instrumentation by Shostakovich (vols 146-150)