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What initially led to trouble for Shostakovich, was the fact that he underestimated the changes taking place in the regime. People were aware of him as an avant-garde symphonist, but more, including Stalin himself, knew him as the composer of popular songs. In 1932, Shostakovich wrote the music for the movie "Counterplan"." the film is about a couple who fall in love while working in a turbine factory. The movie was a box office smash and the theme became one of the nation's biggest hits and Stalin's favorite song. Perhaps it was Stalin's sentimental attachment to this song that later served to protect Shostakovich's life.
The next thing that got Shostakovich into trouble was ironically the piece that had first seemed his greatest success. His opera, "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk"." The piece challenged and excited the audience. The music was different and the plot was racy and exciting as well. Everyone loved it. Overnight, Shostakovich became the most celebrated composer in the Soviet Union. The opera was an international success right from the start. A success with everyone, except for Stalin. In January 1936, Stalin attended a performance of the opera. Shostakovich heard that Stalin would be attending and rushed to the theater to bask in, he hoped, the Supreme Leader's approval. But Stalin did not approve. Seated in his box over the brass and percussion, he found the music raucous, screeching, ugly. And the action on stage that justified the murder of a tyrant was too graphic for his taste. Most of the suggestive trombone glissandos had already been censored. But Stalin was thoroughly appalled by the production and left at intermission. Two days later the front page of Pravda featured, the now infamous review, condemning the opera and it's composer. "Muddle, not Music," was the headline of the Pravda article. Everyone knew that Stalin had approved the article. Many thought he'd written it.
