In the summer of 1937 – during the dangerous time of Stalin's Great Terror – Shostakovich completed his Symphony No. 5. The Pravda article "Muddle Instead of Music" from January 1936, which condemned the composer and his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, resulted in Shostakovich fearing for his life for years.

He withdrew his experimental Symphony No. 4 shortly before its premiere – and then presented a work in his Fifth that on the surface met all the demands of the imposed Socialist Realism. O...