Rule, Britannia! was the third and final work Shostakovich composed for Mikhail Sokolovsky's Theater of Working Class Youth, a collective theatrical endeavor created to bring art into the factories. Shostakovich's enthusiasm for such endeavors was limited: he apparently took on the work because it helped pay the bills and, more importantly, kept the left-wing ideologues of the Communist Party off his back. Written to accompany the play by Adrian Piotrovsky's blunt farce on class warfare abroad, Shostakovich's music to Rule, Britannia! premiered with the play in May 1931. After the play was closed down by those very left-wing ideologues shortly after its premiere, Shostakovich's music was lost and remains lost to this day.

© James Leonard, Rovi