Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) was a Russian composer who worked during the Soviet era in the communist Soviet Union. He was born in St Petersburg. He was only 11 years old in 1917 at the time of the Bolshevik revolution. He graduated from St Petersburg Conservatory, and wrote his 1st Symphony at the age of 19, as his graduation work. His early works were peppered with vigorous dissonances and not firmly tonal. They met with harsh criticism from the Soviet government, and after the age of 24 he submitted to that criticism, and wrote long tonal symphonies with vast repetition. After Stalin died his works became more personal, not so constrained by the authorities. He died in Moscow in 1975.