Dmitri Shostakovich

About Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St Petersburg in 1906 and won early fame with his First Symphony, written as a student at the Petrograd Conservatory. After his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was denounced in Pravda in 1936, his Symphony No. 5 of 1937 restored his standing in the Soviet Union. His Symphony No. 7, dedicated to Leningrad, was performed in the besieged city in August 1942. He wrote 15 symphonies and 15 string quartets, along with film scores and light orchestral music, and died in Moscow in 1975.