Hector responded:

>Wasn't the transcription the result of a wager on whether or not
>Shostakovich could harmonize the song in less than a minute? I heard
>that this bet took place in a bar, and that Shostakovich won.

 From the booklet:

   "Shostakovich's involvement in popular music came about quite
   fortuitously, as the result of a bet with conductor Mikolay
   Malko, who had given the first performance of the "First Symphony"
   in 1926, to orchestrate Vincent Youmans' famous number "Tea for
   Two" from his musical "No No Nanette." Challenged to complete
   his orchestration within an hour, Shostakovich needed only forty
   minutes.  The result, alternately witty and nostalgic, was first
   heard in Moscow on 25th November 1928, when Malko performed it
   under the title "Tahiti Trot." The piece was soon played by dance
   bands and theatre orchestras everywhere, and Shostakovich astutely
   included it in his ballet "The Golden Age," where it became a
   regularly encored item.  Like so much of his music from this
   period, it disappeared as the Stalinisation of the Soviet Union
   proceeded apace, only to be revived in the years immediately
   following the composer's death in 1975."

   Richard Whitehouse

Ron Chaplin
Iselin, New Jersey, USA