For me the essence of Shostakovich soul as a musician are his Bach inspired preludes &fugues by Tatiana Nikolaeva...
She was a friend of Shostakovich and a giant pianist in Russia but almost unknown in the West...
His playing flow from the source without any ego interference and the Bach majestic inspiration behind Shostakovich appear and makes him a brother of the German God...
As anecdote Shostakovich feared so much Stalin, unlike Maria Yudina who scorned Stalin in his face about his great sins and refuse his money, that he waited sleep each night with a minimalistic luggage waiting under hisw bed in case he was deported in the Gulag...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyURjdnYQaU&list=PLiMumVBefK9IpPgqVqyJ33E4IDGiTK_-U
As an aside, Russian music is so badly known in the West , that the best bio of Scriabin (690 pages) written by an American musician who lived in Russia in 1969 , Faubion Bowers, dont even mention in his first chapter about the history of Russian Music the name of the stupendous genius Dmitry Bortnyansky (1751-1825) one of the greatest choral music composer not only in Russia but everywhere, Faubion Bowers begin speaking about Glinka...But nowadays after the stupendous recording of the Choral concertos by Poliansky it is a marvel to hear it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54VRvokl77Y&list=PLDML4XZqb7ZHN3VNnLwu__rtYZy8bWfPG
The West ignore Russia...