Editing Dmitri Shostakovich (section)

=== Youth ===
[[File:Shostakovichbirthplaque.JPG|thumb|right|Birthplace of Shostakovich (now School No. 267). Commemorative plaque at left.]]Born into a Russian family that lived on Podolskaya Street in [[Saint Petersburg]], Russian Empire, Shostakovich was the second of three children of Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina. Shostakovich's immediate forebears came from [[Siberia]],{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=7}} but his paternal grandfather, Bolesław Szostakowicz, was of [[Polish people|Polish]] Catholic descent, tracing his family roots to the region of the town of [[Vileyka]] in today's [[Belarus]]. A Polish revolutionary in the [[January uprising]] of 1863–64, Szostakowicz was exiled to [[Narym]] in 1866 in the crackdown that followed [[Dmitry Karakozov]]'s assassination attempt on [[Alexander II of Russia|Tsar Alexander II]].<ref name=Wilson2000_4>{{harvp|Wilson|2006|p=4}}.</ref> When his term of exile ended, Szostakowicz decided to remain in Siberia. He eventually became a successful banker in [[Irkutsk]] and raised a large family. His son Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich, the composer's father, was born in exile in Narym in 1875 and studied physics and mathematics at [[Saint Petersburg State University|Saint Petersburg University]], graduating in 1899. He then went to work as an engineer under [[Dmitri Mendeleev]] at the Bureau of Weights and Measures in Saint Petersburg. In 1903, he married another Siberian immigrant to the capital, Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, one of six children born to a Siberian Russian.{{r|Wilson2000_4}}

Their son, Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, displayed musical talent after he began piano lessons with his mother at the age of nine. On several occasions, he displayed a remarkable ability to remember what his mother had played at the previous lesson, and would get "caught in the act" of playing the previous lesson's music while pretending to read different music placed in front of him.{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=9}} In 1918, he wrote a funeral march in memory of two leaders of the [[Constitutional Democratic Party|Kadet party]] murdered by [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] sailors.{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=12}}

In 1919, at age 13,{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=14}} Shostakovich was admitted to the [[Saint Petersburg Conservatory|Petrograd Conservatory]], then headed by [[Alexander Glazunov]], who monitored his progress closely and promoted him.{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=17}} Shostakovich studied piano with [[Leonid Nikolayev (pianist)|Leonid Nikolayev]] and Elena Rozanova, composition with [[Maximilian Steinberg]], and [[counterpoint]] and [[fugue]] with [[Nikolay Sokolov (composer)|Nikolay Sokolov]], who became his friend.{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=18}} He also attended [[Alexander Ossovsky]]'s music history classes.{{sfnp|Fairclough|Fanning|2008|p=73}} In 1925, he enrolled in the conducting classes of [[Nikolai Malko]],{{sfnp|Fay|2000|pp=29–30}} where he conducted the conservatory orchestra in a private performance of [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]]'s [[Symphony No. 1 (Beethoven)|First Symphony]]. According to the recollections of the composer's classmate, {{ill|Valerian Bogdanov-Berezhovsky|ru|Богданов-Березовский, Валериан Михайлович}}:

<blockquote>Shostakovich stood at the podium, played with his hair and jacket cuffs, looked around at the hushed teenagers with instruments at the ready and raised the baton. ... He neither stopped the orchestra, nor made any remarks; he focused his entire attention on aspects of tempi and dynamics, which were very clearly displayed in his gestures. The contrasts between the "Adagio molto" of the introduction and "Allegro con brio" first theme were quite striking, as were those between the percussive accents of the chords (woodwinds, French horns, pizzicato strings) and the momentarily extended piano in the introduction following them. In the character given to the pattern of the first theme, I recall, there was both vigorous striving and lightness; in the bass part there was an emphasized pliancy of tenderly threaded articulation.{{nbsp}}... Moments of these sorts{{nbsp}}... were discoveries of an improvised order, born from an intuitively refined understanding of the character of a piece and the elements of musical imagery embedded in it. And the players enjoyed it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Khentova |first=Sofia |title=Молодые годы Шостаковича, Книга 1|trans-title=The Young Years of Shostakovich, Book 1|publisher=Советский композитор [Soviet Composer]|year=1975 |location=Leningrad/Moscow |pages=111–112 |language=ru}}</ref></blockquote>

On 20 March 1925 Shostakovich's music was played in Moscow for the first time, in a program which also included works by his friend [[Vissarion Shebalin]]. To the composer's disappointment, the critics and public there received his music coolly. During his visit to Moscow, Mikhail Kvadri introduced him to [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]],{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=27}} who helped the composer find accommodation and work there, and sent a driver to take him to a concert in "a very stylish automobile".{{sfnp|McSmith|2015|p=171}}

Shostakovich's musical breakthrough was the [[Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich)|First Symphony]], written as his graduation piece at the age of 19. Initially Shostakovich aspired to perform it only privately with the conservatory orchestra, and prepared to conduct the [[scherzo]] himself. By late 1925 Malko agreed to conduct its premiere with the [[Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra]] after Steinberg and Shostakovich's friend [[Boleslav Yavorsky]] brought the symphony to his attention.{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=30}} On 12 May 1926, Malko led the premiere of the symphony; the audience received it enthusiastically, demanding an encore of the scherzo. Thereafter, Shostakovich regularly celebrated the date of his symphonic debut.{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=32}}