In early 1966, Leonard Bernstein threw a birthday party for
Dmitri Shostakovich in Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall.
Although the great Soviet composer couldn’t attend, Bernstein
bounded onto the stage and announced to a crowd of squirming
schoolchildren that, in honor of the occasion, the orchestra
would be performing one of Shostakovich’s “gayest and most
amusing works,” the Ninth Symphony. It’s like a “witty comedy in
the theatre, where you’re treated to one joke after
another–puns, wisecracks, punch lines, surprises, twisteroos.”
The final movement is “like sitting down to a big serious
banquet and being served hotdogs and potato chips.” A perky
violin solo set against the brass section is “like Mickey Mouse
leading a football cheer.”  Based on his latest book, it’s a
good thing Solomon Volkov wasn’t invited to the party. Instead
of comedy, Volkov hears in Shostakovich’s Ninth “tragedy,
lyricism, irony, and grotesquerie.” Instead of playful allusions
to Beethoven, he hears a “direct challenge to Stalin”