Ever since Dmitri Shostakovich was clapped into the doghouse by his Kremlin masters two years ago (TIME, Feb. 23, 1948), he had been slowly nuzzling his way out. He had publicly recanted his "bourgeois formalism" and promised to do what was expected of him. Ten months later, he finally got a friendly pat and a few kind words from Izvestia and Pravda for his score for the movie Young Guard. Last week, he was the top Soviet composer once again. For his oratorio, Song of the
Forests, and his score for the film Fall of Berlin, he won his first Stalin Prize ($25,000) since 1945.
Also honored: the 75-year-old dean of Russian composers, Reinhold Glière, for his new ballet score. The Bronze Horseman. The production of his 23-year-old Red Poppy, one of the most popular ballets in Russia, won prizes for ten leading performers and the directors of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater.