The music of Dmitri Shostakovich, like that of most composers, touches on the full gamut of human emotions, and this should not be surprising. But for those of us who lived a good portion of our lives during the cold war, pieces like his Festive Overture, with its bright enthusiasm, and his musical comedy Cheryomushki, which lampoons life in a soviet apartment block, may not be what we expect form an Eastern Block composer. There is another side to his output that, to our Western ears, seems to reflect exactly the gray, angst ridden existence we imagined and were taught life behind the iron was. Not surprisingly though, the cultural landscape in Soviet Russia was much more complex than we imagine. What was and was not deemed acceptable changed over time and Shostakovich navigated these changes with varying degrees of success. Many of his works were condemned and suppressed by the government. His 5^th String Quartet shows a bit of both his playful side and his brooding side. You can read an excellent analysis of the work here:

http://www.quartets.de/compositions/ssq05.html