 The article condemned Lady Macbeth as formalist, "coarse, primitive and vulgar". Consequently, commissions began to fall off, and his income fell by about three quarters. Even Soviet music critics who had praised the opera were forced to recant in print, saying they "failed to detect the shortcomings of Lady Macbeth as pointed out by Pravda". Shortly after the "Muddle Instead of Music" article, Pravda published another, "Ballet Falsehood," that criticized Shostakovich ’ s ballet The Limpid Stream. Shostakovich did not expect this second article because the general public and press already accepted this music as "democratic" – that is, tuneful and accessible. However, Pravda criticized The Limpid Stream for incorrectly displaying peasant life on the collective farm.
