Sometimes the things that influence a composer’s works the most have nothing to do with music. Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the most talented composers of the twentieth century, but he had the bad luck to live at a time when his government made it very difficult to be a musician. Shostakovitch was a Russian, and at the time Russia was part of a larger country called the Soviet Union. The leaders of the Soviet Union believed that if people listened to certain kinds of music, it would make them question the government and want the country to be run in a different way. Because of this, the government made very specific rules about what kinds of music could and could not be written and performed. Shostakovitch was a very clever composer, however, and he was able to write pieces of music that were “camouflaged”. Often his music seems very patriotic at first, but if you listen carefully, it is actually quite rebellious and sometimes sad.