For the majority of Shostakovich's works, there was overhanging the shadow of the Soviet regime, which determined the mood of the music to be rigid, patriotic, uplifting and generally supporting the ideals of communism. But this piece, which was written by Shostakovich in 1957 (4 years after Stalin's death) for his son's 19th birthday, escapes the norms and is considered one of the composer's most cheerful and free-spirit music creations. It seems that within this music, the composer has hidden family memories and jokes that his son would truly understand.
The music is reflecting the composer's early family life. Through the fun provoking music in movement 1, it is like he is describing happy and careless family stories of his children playing around or fighting or doing their homework and parents intervening to take part in the fun or calm down or help their children. In the second movement, the mood completely changes, it becomes wistful and nostalgic of beautiful and tender family moments.
A suggested title: "Family memories".