Jim Tobin responds to me:

>>[Shostakovich' Symphony #15 is] not an "autumnal" work.  In fact, I think
>>of it as a new beginning for Shostakovich.
>
>What kind of new beginning? I hear it as as very much a retrospective
>glance back over his life and career, from childhood on; and the coda
>sounds like nothing so much as a dance macabre.

It sounds reasonable to me.  I just think that the ambiguity of the work -
as opposed to its sarcasm - is something new.  It's like he's playing with
the old toys but as an adult, rather than as a kid.  Again, I'm in the
mushy realm of "feeling," rather than analysis, here.

Steve Schwartz