| 24 Preludes | |
|---|---|
| Piano music by Dmitri Shostakovich | |
 Dmitri Shostakovich in 1925 | |
| Key | all major and minor keys |
| Opus | 34 |
| Composed | 1932–33 |
| Premiere | |
| Date | May 1933 |
| Location | Moscow |
| Performers | Shostakovich |
The 24 Preludes, Op. 34 is a set of short piano pieces written and premiered by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1933. They are arranged following the circle of fifths, with one prelude in each major and minor key.
Shostakovich began composing the preludes in December 1932, shortly after finishing his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District . He completed the cycle in March 1933, and premiered it in Moscow himself in May of the same year. [1] He composed the preludes largely in order to return to public performance. [2] He had stopped performing in 1930, after his failure to place at the 1927 First International Chopin Piano Competition. [3] The Preludes were first published by Muzgiz in 1935, two years after their premiere. [1]
In the 1930s, violinist Dmitri Tsyganov transcribed 19 of the preludes for violin and piano. Shostakovich stated, "When I hear the transcriptions, I forget meanwhile that I actually composed the Preludes for piano. They sound so violinistic." [4] 1935, Leopold Stokowski arranged no. 14 for orchestra. [5] In 2000, composer and pianist Lera Auerbach made an arrangement of the remaining five preludes. Pianist Gintaras Januševičius and actor Steven Markusfeld adapted the Preludes to the texts by poet Daniil Charms for their 2022 narrative programme "Damn Black Ice & Giant Cucumbers".
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major composer.
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas.
A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. While, during the Baroque era, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand-alone piece of work during the Romantic era. It generally features a small number of rhythmic and melodic motifs that recur through the piece. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature. The term may also refer to an overture, particularly to those seen in an opera or an oratorio.
Tatiana Petrovna Nikolayeva was a pianist, composer, and teacher from the Soviet Union.
The 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 by Dmitri Shostakovich are a set of 24 musical pieces for solo piano, one in each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. The cycle was composed in 1950 and 1951 while Shostakovich was in Moscow, and premiered by pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva in Leningrad in December 1952; it was published the same year. A complete performance takes approximately 2 hours and 32 minutes. It is one of several examples of music written in all major and/or minor keys.
Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43, between September 1935 and May 1936, after abandoning some preliminary sketch material. In January 1936, halfway through this period, Pravda—under direct orders from Joseph Stalin—published an editorial "Muddle Instead of Music" that denounced the composer and targeted his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Despite this attack and the political climate of the time, Shostakovich completed the symphony and planned its premiere for December 1936 in Leningrad. After rehearsals began, the orchestra's management cancelled the performance, offering a statement that Shostakovich had withdrawn the work. He may have agreed to withdraw it to relieve orchestra officials of responsibility. The symphony was premiered on 30 December 1961 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra led by Kirill Kondrashin.
Mieczysław Weinberg was a Polish-born Soviet composer and pianist.
The Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67, is a piece for violin, cello and piano by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, started in late 1943 and completed in August the following year. It was premiered on 14 November 1944. The piece was dedicated to his close friend Ivan Sollertinsky, whose death in February 1944 affected Shostakovich profoundly.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102, by Dmitri Shostakovich was composed in 1957 for the 19th birthday of his son Maxim, who premiered the piece during his graduation concert at the Moscow Conservatory. It contains many similar elements to Shostakovich's Concertino for Two Pianos: both works were written to be accessible for developing young pianists. It is an uncharacteristically cheerful piece, much more so than most of Shostakovich's works.
DSCH is a musical motif used by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich to represent himself. It is a musical cryptogram in the manner of the BACH motif, consisting of the notes D, E-flat, C, B natural, or in German musical notation D, Es, C, H, thus standing for the composer's initials in German transliteration: D. Sch..
Olav Fartein Valen was a Norwegian composer, notable for his work in atonal polyphonic music. He developed a polyphony similar to Bach's counterpoint, but based on motivic working and dissonance rather than harmonic progression.
The Concerto in C minor for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra, Op. 35, was completed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1933.
Valery Viktorovich Zhelobinsky was a Soviet and Russian composer, pianist and pedagogue.
Olli Mustonen is a Finnish pianist, conductor, and composer.
The Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 61 by Dmitri Shostakovich, the last of his piano sonatas, was composed in early 1943. It was his first piano composition since the 24 Preludes, Op. 34 from 1933 and his second attempt at composing a piano sonata in the key of B-minor. John Jonas Gruen said that there was "nothing obscure or technically impenetrable" about this sonata, but that "something disquieting—something faintly obsessive—emerges from its deceptively simple structure."
Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major, Op. 134 in the autumn of 1968 in Moscow, completing it on October 23. It is set in three movements and lasts approximately 31 minutes. It is dedicated to the violinist David Oistrakh, who premiered the work on May 3, 1969 in the Large Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.
The Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147, is the last composition by Dmitri Shostakovich. It was completed on July 5, 1975, weeks before his death. It is dedicated to Fyodor Druzhinin, violist of the Beethoven Quartet.
The Three Fantastic Dances, Op. 5 are a set of three piano pieces composed by Dmitri Shostakovich while he was a student at the Petrograd Conservatory. They are dedicated to Iosif Shvarts, a friend and fellow pupil in the piano class of Leonid Nikolayev.
Scherzo in F-sharp minor is a piece for orchestra written by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975). Shostakovich was a Russian composer and pianist during the Soviet era. It was most likely written in 1921 or 1922 while Shostakovich was studying at the Petrograd Conservatory under Maximilian Steinberg. The composition is one of the composer's earliest surviving works. Originally written as a single movement of a piano sonata, the Scherzo was later orchestrated with assistance from Steinberg and became an orchestral work in its own right.
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