Dmitri Shostakovich was a Russian pianist and composer, born in 1906 in Saint-Petersburg. During his childhood, he began to display an interest in music and took piano lessons with his mother. Later, in 1919, he went to the Petrograd Conservatory and studied piano, composition, fugue, counterpoint, music history, and later conducting. He wrote his first work at the end of his studies; a piece called the First Symphony, which premiered in 1926 and was well received. Shostakovich went on to perform as a pianist and continued to write music, and by the 1930s, he started to perform his own compositions. In 1932, he married Nina Varzar and the couple had two children together. Shostakovich’s life would turn upside down after 1936. Joseph Stalin attended the opera to see Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, but the composer was absent. Stalin left the theater without saying a word and later, critics began to fire at Shostakovich without mercy. 

The years of the Great Terror and the outbreak of war made Shostakovich and his family’s life even more difficult. Although he was never arrested, many of his friends were. The composer spent a decade in fear of being arrested, deported, or killed. Even after the end of WWII, his troubles did not end. Along with fellow composer Sergueï Prokofiev, Shostakovich was condemned for being formalists in the Zhdanov decree. Any western influence in the arts was being rooted out and many musicians and composers went into exile. Shostakovich stayed in Russia, but had to deal with the complicated political environment until Stalin’s death in 1953.  

After Stalin’s passing, artists progressively began to be reintegrated and recognized for their talent. After his wife’s death in 1954, Shostakovich married again in 1962 to a much younger woman named Irina Supinskaya, whom he loved very much. His health was rapidly failing, and he had two heart attacks in 1966 and 1971. He finally died of heart failure in 1975. His repertoire includes 15 symphonies, 6 concertos, several suites, symphonic works and string quartets as well as 10 operas, 5 ballets and several film scores. For a long time, his influence outside Russia was minimized, but many of his contemporaries in Europe cite him as an influence in their work.