Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the most famous composers of the 20th century. He became famous, but at the cost of many hardships. He was censored and threatened with not only his life, but also that of his wife and children, while playing the role of a public figure in Soviet Russia. The question is: was he a committed communist or a victim? The events of his life, good and bad, shaped the music he created and led to one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century, his Fifth Symphony. Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on September 25, 1906, Shostakovich was the second of three children born to Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokulina. His father was of Polish origin but both his parents were from Siberia. Dmitri was a child prodigy as a pianist and composer. He began taking piano lessons from his mother at the age of nine. He displayed an incredible talent for remembering what his mother had played in the previous lesson and would be caught pretending to read music, playing the music from his last lesson instead of what was placed in front him. In 1919, at the age of thirteen, he was allowed to enter the Petrograd Conservatory in Saint Petersburg and studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev. Because the conservatory was poorly financed, it had no heating; students were required to wear coats, hats, and gloves at all times and only removed their gloves when composing. Due to these poor living conditions, Dmitri developed tuberculosis of the lymph nodes in the spring of 1923 and had to undergo surgery. He nevertheless finished his final piano exams at the conservatory in June, his neck still bandaged. Shostakovich, although very intelligent and talented, was considered immature in the end...... middle of paper ......all. Works Cited • Burkholder, J. Peter, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music. 8th ed. New York: WW Norton, 2010. Print.• Fanning, David. Shostakovich studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print.• Hurwitz, David and Dmitriĭ Dmitrievich Shostakovich. Shostakovich's Symphonies and Concertos: A User's Manual. Pompton Plains, NJ: Amadeus;, 2006. Print.• Norris, Christopher. Shostakovich, the man and his music. Boston: M. Boyars, 1982. Print. • Volkov, Solomon and Antonina W. Bouis. Shostakovich and Stalin: the extraordinary relationship between the great composer and the brutal dictator. New York: Knopf, 2004. Print.• David Fanning and Laurel Fay. “Shostakovich, Dmitri.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. April 14. 2012 .