Volumes have been written about Dmitri  Shostakovich and his ambivalent relationship with the Soviet regime. The composer came from a family of the St. Petersburg intelligentsia and, as a teenager, was a true believer in the Bolshevik Revolution. But in his late twenties, he became caught up in the Stalinist nightmare.

Shostakovich's first – and worst – brush with Soviet authorities came in January 1936. An article appeared in Pravda severely criticizing his highly successful new opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtzensk District. The result was that, upon the order of the government, the opera and the rest of the composer's music were withdrawn from the stage and the concert hall. For the first of many times, Shostakovich was cast into Soviet limbo, his music unperformed, his livelihood taken away, and his life put in jeopardy. In later years he recalled that he was so certain of being arrested that he used to sleep with his suitcase packed near the front door so that if the secret police were to pick him up, they would not disturb the rest of the family. He redeemed himself in the eyes of the authorities in 1937 with Symphony No. 5, which gave him a conditional reprieve. The opera, however, was not performed again for 25 years.

During World War II, Shostakovich's reputation was thoroughly restored when his Seventh Symphony ("Leningrad") was composed and performed during the Nazi siege of his re-named hometown. The defiant symphony was performed throughout the Allied world. It provided the anti-fascist alliance with a major propaganda victory when the war seemed to be going Hitler's way. 

1945 – the year of the Ninth Symphony, was a year of victory and a time of hope. The authorities decreed that artists should celebrate the victory with triumphal paeans and praises of Stalin. Shostakovich, however, saw things differently: tens of millions were dead, the world was in chaos, and the apparatchiks were still in control. Instead of the triumphant Ninth Symphony that was expected of him, Shostakovich instead wrote a short, sarcastic, un-celebratory piece. The authorities hated it. 

The Ninth is a wind player's showcase with one magnificent solo after another. Written in five movements, it creates a musical arch, beginning and ending with sarcastic parodies of the victory celebration. The second and fourth movements are dirges, moving reminders of the horrendous toll on lives suffered by the Russian people. 

The Symphony opens with an inappropriately jaunty theme   – followed by a  mocking second theme for solo piccolo. The middle  section features a trombone that can't seem to figure out where their two-note figure belongs. The opening mood returns, only to be cut off abruptly.

The second movement opens with a mournful clarinet solo, with each statement of the melody augmented and varied by the upper woodwinds in turn. The strings supply a creeping second theme with the clarinet, high in its range, distorting the opening melody. A lonely piccolo brings the movement to a haunting and enigmatic close. 

The final three movements are performed without a break. The frantic, high-pitched Scherzo builds to an intense climax as more and more instruments are added. The melee gradually subsides into the tragic Largo, announced by the low brass. The movement is a magnificent dirge for solo bassoon answering fearsome blasts from the brass. , follows in dialogue with the brass. The bassoon solo finally lightens in mood and transforms into the folksy main theme of the Finale. 

The Finale returns to the circus quality of the opening movement. Although the tone seems more positive at first, there follows a whiningly dissonant duet for oboe and clarinet. Shostakovich continuously  ramps up the tension as the bassoon's jaunty melody is transformed into a terrifying march., The Symphony ends with a slapstick coda and a sudden, mocking fanfare. No wonder the commissars didn't like it.

As a result, the years until Stalin's death in 1953 were difficult ones for Shostakovich. He kept his head down and wrote music for films (and works "for the drawer"—composed but not performed publicly). He didn't dare write another symphony until "The Great Leader and Teacher" was safely embalmed and on display in the Kremlin.