Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the most famous composers of the 20th century. He achieved fame, but with many difficulties along the way. He was censored and threatened not only with his life but also that of his wife and children by 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 or bad, shaped the music he created and led to one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century, his Fifth Symphony. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on September 25, 1906, Shostakovich was the second of three children born to Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina. His father was of Polish descent but both his parents were natives of 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 demonstrated 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 the one that had been put in front of him. In 1919, at the age of thirteen, he was allowed to enter the Petrograd Conservatory in St. Petersburg and studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev. Because the greenhouse was poorly financed, it had no heat; students had to constantly wear coats, hats, and gloves only taking their gloves off while composing. Due to these poor living conditions, in the spring of 1923 Dmitri contracted tuberculosis in his lymph nodes and had to undergo an operation. However, in June he completed his final piano exams at the conservatory with his neck still bandaged. Shostakovich, although very intelligent and talented, was considered immature in his fin...... middle of paper ......alled.Works Cited• Burkholder, J. Peter, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca . A history of Western music. 8th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Print.• Fanning, David. Shostakovich Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print.• Hurwitz, David and Dmitriĭ Dmitrievich Shostakovich. Shostakovich Symphonies and Concertos: An Instruction 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, Dmitry." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. April 14. 2012 .