Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich
Performer: Vicky Yannoula, Jakob Fichert
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0034
Release: 2011
Size: 294 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Symphony No. 9 in E flat major, Op. 70
01. I. Allegro
02. II. Moderato
03. III. Presto
04. IV. Largo
05. V. Allegretto
Song of the Great Rivers (Unity), Op. 95
06. Waltz (version for piano 4 hands)
Ballet Suite No. 2 (version for piano 4 hands)
07. III. Polka (version for piano 4 hands)
Suite from the film ‘The Adventures of Korzinkina’, Op. 59
08. III. The Chase
Suite for two pianos in F sharp major, Op. 6
09. I. Prelude: Andantino
10. II. Danse fantastique
11. III. Nocturne: Andante
12. IV. Finale: Allegro
13. Tarantella
14. Merry March, Op. 84c
15. Concertino for two pianos in A minor, Op. 94
The piano was always at the centre of Shostakovich’s musical universe. He began to show signs of musical talent as a child, starting his first piano lessons with his mother, and immediately after leaving the Conservatoire he was ranked as a promising concert pianist.
The piano remained important to Shostakovich throughout his career: he usually played the piano parts of his chamber works and songs at their first performances, and wrote some of his most important works for the instrument, including the two concertos, the two sonatas, and the monumental set of 24 Preludes and Fugues.
Much of Shostakovich’s orchestral music was first heard in versions he prepared for piano four hands or two pianos: he routinely arranged his own symphonies to facilitate performance to friends in advance of their orchestral premieres, and for personal pleasure afterwards. This common practice was also convenient for letting Communist Party apparatchiks decide whether the work was ideologically worthy of performance.
Most of these transcriptions have languished unheard since those early performances. This series uncovers all the transcriptions prepared by Shostakovich himself, coupling them with all his original music for piano duo and duet, and contains his earliest surviving two-piano work (Suite in F sharp minor, Op. 6, composed in Petrograd in March 1922 in memory of his father, who had just died) as well as dances from several of his film scores (including the little-heard Korzinkina’s Adventures, Op. 59).