BERNSTEIN IN JAPAN: Schumann • Symphony No.1. Shostakovich • Symphony No. 5 Felix Mendelssohn conducted the premiere performance of Robert Schumann’s First or Spring Symphony in 1841, six weeks after the work’s completion, and the composer won acclaim as a symphonist on his first try. Dimitri Shostakovich had been a darling of the Soviet regime but in 1936 began to slide into official disfavor. His Fifth Symphony reinstated him in official good graces, but some listeners hear in its triumphal conclusion an undertone of bitter irony.