Shostakovich's letters to Sollertinsky, written from 1927-1944, reveal many aspects of the composer's personality seen in few other sources, along with sharp opinions and crippling vulnerabilities.
[4] Sollertinsky supported Shostakovich's opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, writing that it was an "enormous contribution to Soviet musical culture" in his 1934 review of it in Rabochii i Teatr (English: "Workers and Theatre").
[6] Criticism of Lady Macbeth grew after its denunciation, resulting in mounting pressure on Sollertinsky to recant his previous statements, as he was largely blamed for influencing Shostakovich's "formalist" musical style by introducing him to the works of western composers.
[7] Once he retracted his previous positive statements on Lady Macbeth, Sollertinsky claimed that he would instead study the folklore of the Caucasus region and the Georgian language, perhaps to appeal to Stalin, a native of Georgia.
During his four-month period of hospitalization, from June to September, Sollertinsky studied Hungarian and continued to write articles on opera and art.
There, he engaged himself in a number of creative works with the Philharmonic, and frequently traveled in order to give speeches, lectures, and to attend other artistic and cultural events.
While in Novosibirsk, he delivered the opening remarks for the city's premiere of Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony, on February 5, 1943, which would be the last speech he was to give before his death.
The fourth and most famous movement uses klezmer-inspired themes, a possible reference to the victims of the Holocaust, due to the fact that news of the genocide was reaching the Soviet Union at the time.