The Piano Legacy of Dmitri Shostakovich

by Hermione Lai

I’ve been diving into the piano music of Dmitri Shostakovich lately, and it’s like stumbling into a secret room full of contradictions. The music seems gritty, tender, sarcastic, and soulful all at once.

Dmitri Shostakovich

Everything seems full of restless energy with angular melodies interrupted by moments of aching lyricism. Much of it is not just music, but a story that doesn’t quite resolve, and I’m certainly hooked on figuring out what he’s trying to say.    

Irony and Hidden Truths

Much of his music strikes a balance between a wiry and percussive drive and ghostly, introspective passages. It’s like he’s painting a picture of an uncertain world, but at the same time clinging to slivers of hope.

I am no virtuoso, but there’s something about his music that makes me want to lean in closer, to uncover the layers of irony and heart he’s tucked away. It’s not always easy listening, but it’s the kind of music that makes you feel like you’re discovering something true.

As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death this year, let us explore the world of Shostakovich’s piano music, where every note pulses with raw emotion and hidden stories waiting to be unravelled.

First Piano Sonata

Dmitri Shostakovich

During his days at the Conservatoire, Shostakovich was ranked as a promising concert pianist, and the instrument remained important throughout his career. He wrote some of his most important works for the piano, and he usually played the piano parts of his chamber works and songs at their premiere.

Shostakovich was just 20 years old when he wrote his first Piano Sonata Op. 12. It’s a wild and youthful burst of energy that shows his early genius and his love for pushing boundaries. When his piano professor first heard the work, he commented, “Is this a piano sonata? No, it’s a sonata for metronome with piano accompaniment!”

This bold, single-movement of jagged rhythms, sharp dissonances and sudden mood shifts is terribly difficult to play. And just listen to the aggressive percussive passages with some fleeting lyrical moments. It’s full of avant-garde spirit and virtuosic flair with hints of Prokofiev and even Stravinsky.  

Aphorisms

Dmitri Shostakovich

The next piano work of Shostakovich goes off in a completely different direction as he composed a cycle of ten miniatures for piano, eventually titled Aphorisms. Written in Leningrad during his early experimental phase, these miniatures are witty and modern.

Each piece is titled evocatively, including Recitative, Serenade, Nocturne, March, and others, and has a distinct character. It’s like a musical sketch capturing a fleeting mood or idea. A scholar tells us that Shostakovich “subverted the traditional expectations implicit in the title into a ruthless and vinegary application.”

The musical world is turned upside down as we find atonal modernity and a number of caricature-like movements. That Nocturne is not hinting at things that go bump in the night but graphically depicts them. Plenty of sly humour and subtle melancholy and much youthful experimentation, if you ask me.   

Dmitry Shostakovich: Aphorisms, Op. 13 (Melvin Chen, piano)

Second Piano Concerto

Dmitri Shostakovich

The piano plays multiple roles in the hands of Shostakovich, and that includes 2 Piano Concertos. Both concertos are relatively short, reflecting his preference for concision and clarity. Above all, they showcase his ability to blend classical forms with modern, often satirical elements.

While the first concerto is a severe, biting, and anguished composition, the Second Piano Concerto, written in 1957, was a birthday present for his son Maxim. As such, it is good-natured, vibrant and sparkles with wit and warmth.

A playful woodwind intro leads to a lively piano melody, and a march-like bugle call shifts to a lyrical theme. The second movement bares raw sadness with a tender piano melody, and the third movement snaps back to a carefree tune. It all ends with a joyful flair, and according to some pianists, “it is one of the most fun concertos to perform in the entire piano repertoire.”    

Concertino for 2 Pianos

Shostakovich seriously considered pursuing a career as a concert pianist. However, after only winning a medal of honour at the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 1927, he decided to follow his calling as a composer.

Maxim Shostakovich, the composer’s son, was also a piano prodigy. Shostakovich composed the Concertino for two pianos in 1953 for Maxim as a kind of entrance examination for the Moscow Conservatory.

Maxim Shostakovich, 1967

The single-movement work provides plenty of material for young soloists to excel in front of their audience. It is an impassioned work with heavy dotted rhythms and a characteristic forward drive. There is plenty of room for virtuosity and two very attractive themes. One is emphatically melodic and the other march-like. Maxim premiered the piece alongside fellow student Alla Maloletkova in 1954.     

Concerto for Piano and Trumpet

Let’s feature one more concerto, specifically the “Concerto for piano and trumpet”, also known as the Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor. Shostakovich unleashed his piece in the spring of 1933, and ever the musical provocateur, he blended the virtuosic flair of the piano with the brassy interjections of a solo trumpet.

This concerto was composed at the height of Shostakovich’s youthful exuberance. It crackles with a theatrical energy that veers from playful mockery to poignant lyricism. The piano drives the narrative with dazzling runs and biting rhythms, while the trumpet punctuates the dialogue like a wry commentator in moments of jazzy bravado.

This work pulses with Shostakovich’s signature irony, weaving quotations from Beethoven and Haydn into a modernist tapestry that both celebrates and subverts classical traditions. The trumpet part was inspired by the composer’s fascination with popular music and theatre, evoking everything from circus antics to heartfelt speeches.   

24 Preludes

In 1932/33, Dmitri Shostakovich poured his restless imagination into the 24 Preludes, Op. 34. It is a cycle of piano miniatures that traverse every major and minor key with a chameleon-like range of emotions.

Each prelude is a fleeting world unto itself. Some sparkle with sardonic wit, others brood with introspective melancholy, while a few erupt in virtuosic bursts of energy. Essentially, Shostakovich weaves a tapestry of contrasts between irony and veiled tragedy.

Shostakovich blends the romantic echoes of Chopin with the sharp edges of modernist dissonance and hints of Russian folk song. These works shimmer with immediacy, delivering emotional punches; the cycle offers a whimsical, haunting, and defiant journey through Shostakovich’s inner landscape  

Second Piano Trio

Father and Son Shostakovich

In this little survey of the piano works by Shostakovich, we should also take a quick look at the piano’s role in his chamber music. The work that stands out to me is the Piano Trio No. 2. It was written in the summer of 1944, during a time of mourning for personal and collective losses amidst the horrors of World War II.

This four-movement trio is a tapestry of anguish and resilience, music infused with a raw and almost unbearable emotional weight. The interplay of instruments creates a dialogue that feels like a requiem for a fractured world. Some commentators call it “the composer’s unspoken rage against the brutality of his time.”

Premiered in November 1944 by Shostakovich and members of the Beethoven Quartet, the trio stunned listeners with its emotional directness and technical demands, cementing its place as one of his most profound chamber works. The piano serves as both a driving rhythmic force and a poignant lyrical voice, alternating between sharp intensity and tender introspection.   

Second Piano Sonata

Shostakovich’s 2nd Piano Sonata was composed in 1943, and it is also a deeply introspective work. This three-movement sonata also reflects a musical shift from youthful exuberance to a more mature, contemplative voice.

Shostakovich, then in his late 30s, pours his personal and political struggles into the music and creates a soundscape that feels both intimate and universal. The heart of the sonata lies in the second movement, a haunting Largo that unfolds like a quiet lament with the piano weaving hesitant melodies that seem to mourn yet cling to hope.

The final movement drives with relentless energy, featuring intricate counterpoint and syncopated rhythms that culminate in a powerful yet bittersweet close. One needs technical precision and emotional maturity as a pianist to convey the layered complexity. This is one more exploration of Shostakovich’s inner works, simultaneously raw, reflective, and profoundly moving.

For Shostakovich, the piano becomes a most versatile and expressive voice. The instrument carries his signature blend of intensity, irony, and introspection across genres. The piano in Shostakovich’s hands, conveying personal struggle, subtle humour, or profound resilience, is one of the most intensely emotional storytellers in music.

Dmitri Shostakovich

 

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Following his death, the government of the USSR issued the following summary of Shostakovich’s work, drawing attention to a ‘remarkable example of fidelity to the traditions of musical classicism, and above all, to the Russian traditions, finding his inspiration in the reality of Soviet life, reasserting and developing in his creative innovations the art of socialist realism and, in so doing, contributing to universal progressive musical culture’. The Times wrote of him in its obituary that he was beyond doubt ‘the last great symphonist’.

Martha Argerich - Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.1 (2023)

15,464 views Jul 24, 2023

Martha plays Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.1 with Sergei Nakariakov (Trumpet) and Sylvain Gasançon (Cond.) in the second part of the fourth concert of the Festival Argerich, this Saturday July 22nd at Teatro Colón SHOSTAKOVICH PIANO CONCERTO NO.1 IN C MINOR, OP.35 FOR PIANO AND TRUMPET: 0:38 - I: Allegretto 6:49 - II: Lento 14:29 - III: Moderato 16:07 - IV: Allegro con brío 26:50 - Encore: Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.1, IV: Allegro con brío

D.Shostakovich - Waltz No.2 (from the Jazz Suite No.2)

Dmitri Shostakovich - The Second Waltz

Dmitri Shostakovich - The Second Waltz

13,093,609 views  Jun 17, 2018  To se nevrati - use to say the Czechs being in a nostalgia mood and thinking on something what passed definitely. It will never be the same...

Making the clip I used scenes from movies The Leopard  (Il Gattopardo) by Luchino Visconti from 1963.  Anna Karenina by Maurizio Millenotti from 1997, Anna Karenina by Joe Wright from 2013, Fanfan & Alexandre by Alexandre Jardin from 1993, War and Peace, TV series from 2007, and - what has to be mentioned especially -  The Waltz of Dagmara and Artur (their 1. wedding dance) form 2011.

Dmitri Shostakovich - The Second Waltz - His music and his life

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) was a Russian composer and pianist and was one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century.

Life and Music 

Despite Shostakovich's exceptional talent, it was not until he was nine that he received his first formal piano lessons from his mother, a professional pianist. 

In 1919, composer Alexander Glazunov considered the young Shostakovich ready to begin his studies at the Petrograd Conservatory, where he was director. 

The 19-year-old Shostakovich produced a First Symphony that is an astonishing act of creative prodigy. 

In 1936, Stalin attended a performance of Shostakovich's operatic grotesquerie, Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District. Dismayed by its lack of positivist flag-saving, the state newspaper, Pravda, slated this "bedlam of noise". 

With the gun of the Soviet regime pointed at his head - and Stalin's finger effectively on the trigger - Shostakovich knew he had to produce a surefire winner. 

The Fifth Symphony, with its universal message of triumph achieved out of adversity, was exactly what the State wanted, and it made him a public hero. 

In 1948, several composers, including Shostakovich and Prokofiev, were hauled over the coals by Pravda for "decadent formalism". 

In 1953 Shostakovich also composed his masterly Tenth Symphony, written - although no one was aware of it at the time - as a reaction against the Stalinist regime, and in the case of the vitriolic Scherzo, a sardonic portrait of Stalin. 

The constant psychological torture had taken its toll, and it seems that in 1960, following the completion of his Eighth String Quartet, Shostakovich contemplated suicide. In 1966 he suffered a heart attack from which he never fully recovered, and which hastened a preoccupation with death which is tangibly realised in his angst-ridden Fourteenth Symphony. 

Shostakovich died a broken man. 

Did you know? 

One of Shostakovich's songs was sung by the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin over the radio from his spacecraft to Mission Control down on earth.

Dmitri Shostakovich - his music and his life

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) was a Russian composer and pianist and was one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century.

Life and Music 

Despite Shostakovich's exceptional talent, it was not until he was nine that he received his first formal piano lessons from his mother, a professional pianist. 

In 1919, composer Alexander Glazunov considered the young Shostakovich ready to begin his studies at the Petrograd Conservatory, where he was director. 

The 19-year-old Shostakovich produced a First Symphony that is an astonishing act of creative prodigy. 

In 1936, Stalin attended a performance of Shostakovich's operatic grotesquerie, Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District. Dismayed by its lack of positivist flag-saving, the state newspaper, Pravda, slated this "bedlam of noise". 

With the gun of the Soviet regime pointed at his head - and Stalin's finger effectively on the trigger - Shostakovich knew he had to produce a surefire winner. 

The Fifth Symphony, with its universal message of triumph achieved out of adversity, was exactly what the State wanted, and it made him a public hero. 

In 1948, several composers, including Shostakovich and Prokofiev, were hauled over the coals by Pravda for "decadent formalism". 

In 1953 Shostakovich also composed his masterly Tenth Symphony, written - although no one was aware of it at the time - as a reaction against the Stalinist regime, and in the case of the vitriolic Scherzo, a sardonic portrait of Stalin. 

The constant psychological torture had taken its toll, and it seems that in 1960, following the completion of his Eighth String Quartet, Shostakovich contemplated suicide. In 1966 he suffered a heart attack from which he never fully recovered, and which hastened a preoccupation with death which is tangibly realised in his angst-ridden Fourteenth Symphony. 

Shostakovich died a broken man. 

Did you know? 

One of Shostakovich's songs was sung by the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin over the radio from his spacecraft to Mission Control down on earth.

(C) ClassicFM London

Leningrad Does Varietee: Wooding, Shostakovich, Dunayesky and Prokofiev

by Georg Predota , Interlude

Sam Wooding and his Chocolate Kiddies

Just a couple of years after Western Europe fell under the spell of popular American musical styles, it also debuted in the Soviet Union. As a musical language increasingly placed at the service of social commentary, and with its strong connotations for freedom, jazz in the Soviet era led a somewhat tortured existence. Constantly in flux between prohibition, censorship and even state sponsorship, jazz developed into a popular form of music and it became an element of Soviet cultural life. The birth of Soviet jazz is celebrated on 1 October 1922 when Valentin Parnach and his band played their first concert in Moscow.

Chocolate Kiddies poster

Parnach came into contact with jazz at a concert of the American band Louis Mitchel Jazz Kings during his exile in Paris in 1921. He returned to Moscow a year later with a complete set of instruments. But what really got the jazz craze properly started were appearances of bandleader Sam Wooding and his “Chocolate Kiddies.” Essentially a Broadway-styled revue billed as a “negro operetta,” it toured the Soviet Union in 1926 for three months with appearances in Moscow and Leningrad. Joseph Stalin was in the Moscow audience, and criticism focused on the visual aspects of the performance. As a reviewer wrote, “it is not important how blacks play, how they dance, sing and think… What is important is that they are all black.”

Sam Wooding & his Chocolate Kiddies in Leningrad 

Dmitri Shostakovich

When the Chocolate Kiddies Company arrived in Leningrad, a highly interested Dmitri Shostakovich sat in the audience. According to musicologists, this “was, to Shostakovich a musical revelation of America.” Growing up in the young Leninist Soviet Union, Shostakovich had previously only gleaned jazz through selected friends and sparse historical information. The vitality and enthusiasm of the performers made an indelible impression, and jazz remained part of his compositional toolkit. Political circumstances beyond his control made it impossible to overtly practise his appreciation, but in 1934 he was commissioned by a Leningrad dance band to furnish some dancing music. The resulting Suite for Jazz Orchestra is a whimsical take on jazz, reflecting more of the composer’s interest in gypsy music and the music of the Yiddish theatre. As such, we expectedly find a waltz and a polka, but it also features a concluding foxtrot. Conforming to severe Soviet guidelines, this jazz suite leaves no room for improvisation but unfolds in strict time and rhythm.

May Day in Leningrad (1925)

The Soviet Union experienced massive political and economic upheavals in the early 1930s, and jazz was eyed as an undesirable import of Western culture. Joseph Stalin tightly controlled all manner of artistic expression, and he demanded that all forms of art convey the struggles and triumphs of the proletariat and present a realistic reflection of Soviet life and society. Searching for a musical style “in which the ideology of the emerging communist communal society could be expressed most effectively” also meant that jazz had to be politicized.

Isaak Dunayesky

Maxim Gorki, writing during his exile in Sorrento, equated jazz with homosexuality, drugs and eroticism. He describes jazz as “a dry knock of an idiotic hammer penetrates the utter stillness. One, two, three, ten, twenty strikes, and afterwards a wild whistling and squeaking as if a ball of mud was falling into clear water; then follows a rattling, howling and screaming like the clamor of a metal pig, the cry of a donkey or the amorous croaking of a monstrous frog. The offensive chaos of this insanity combines into a pulsing rhythm. Listen to this screaming for only a few minutes, and one involuntarily pictures an orchestra of sexually wound-up madmen, conducted by a Stallion-like creature who is swinging his giant genitals.” The alleged connection between jazz, modern dance and sexuality was officially classified as “sonic idiocy in the bourgeois-capitalist world.” Given such overt hostility, jazz idioms found refuge in motion pictures.

Sergei Prokofiev

With Soviet artists and performers increasingly falling under the microscope of uncompromising state machinery, Sergei Prokofiev—with permission from the government—packed his bags and settled in Paris in October 1923. In a city awash with artistic personalities, Prokofiev quickly became interested in jazz and rubbed shoulders with leading composers, including George Gershwin in 1928. Vernon Duke reports, “George came and played his head off; Prokofiev liked the tunes and the flavoursome embellishments, but thought little of the Concerto in F, which he said later, consisted of “32-bar choruses ineptly bridged together.” Prokofiev thought highly of Gershwin’s gifts, both as a composer and pianist, and he predicted “he’d go far should he leave dollars and dinners alone.” Duke also remembered Prokofiev saying, “Gershwin’s piano playing is full of amusing tricks, but the music is amateurish.” Prokofiev met Gershwin again in 1930 in New York, and noted in his journal afterward, “Gershwin also attempts to compose serious music, and sometimes he even does that with a certain flair, but not always successfully.” For all the criticism and posturing, it is clear that Prokofiev was highly receptive to jazz influences. One might actually describe the slow movement of his Third Piano Concerto, a work that had been started as far back as 1913, as greatly indebted to Gershwin.

23 historic photographs of classical composers doing incredibly normal things

 By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

Iconic preserved moments of history’s most esteemed maestros, doing very normal stuff.

Photography is vital to our world. It gives us a deep connection to the past, preserving memories and moments of historic importance, and telling truths if ever sinister attempts are made to mask reality.

And as photography became increasingly widespread during the 19th century, classical composers began to enjoy their own moments under the flash-and-powder.

Now, from Gustav Mahler to Leonard Bernstein, we often hail these musicians’ art as so influential, so unrivalled, that we can forget they are just human beings like all the rest of us. Human beings, with really mundane hobbies outside of the recording studio.

Seeing is believing, as these great maestros show an interest in falconry, sledging and, well, swinging. Of the playground sort, mind you…

1. Claude Debussy having a nap (1900)

   

   Claude Debussy having a nap. Picture: adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images

2. Dmitri Shostakovich watching his favourite football team on a Sunday morning in Moscow (1942)

   

   Dmitri Shostakovich watching his favourite Spartak football team on a Sunday morning in Moscow. Picture: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

3. Dame Ethel Smyth waiting impatiently for women to have equal rights (1930)

   

   Composer and political activist Dame Ethel Smyth waiting impatiently for women to have equal rights. (1930). Picture: History collection 2016 / Alamy Stock Photo

4. Young Sergei Prokofiev playing an intense game of chess (date unknown)

   

   Young Sergei Prokofiev playing a highly competitive game of chess. Picture: Alamy

5. Richard Strauss in Schierke, Germany, sledging with noticeable discomfort (date unknown)

   

   Richard Strauss sledging in Schierke, Germany. Picture: Roger Viollet via Getty Images

6. John Williams dropping by to visit Luciano Pavarotti in his dressing room at the Grammy Awards (1999)

   

   John Williams and Luciano Pavarotti clasping hands at the Grammy Awards. (1999). Picture: Ron Wolfson/Online/Getty

7. Leonard Bernstein swinging barefoot outside his Fairfield, Connecticut home (1986)

   

   Composer Leonard Bernstein swings outside of his Fairfield, Connecticut home (1986). Picture: Joe McNally/Getty Images

8. German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen smoking a pipe during a recording session (1970)

   

   German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen smokes a pipe during a recording session. Picture: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

9. Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan enjoying a spot of falconry (1955)

   

   Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan enjoying a spot of falconry. (1955). Picture: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

10. French composer and conductor Nadia Boulanger, exasperated during rehearsals (1976)

    

    French composer and conductor Nadia Boulanger, exasperated. (1976). Picture: Erich Auerbach/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

11. Opera legend Jessye Norman and film maestro John Williams share a moment (2012)

    

    Opera legend Jessye Norman and film maestro John Williams share a moment at Williams’ 80th Birthday Tribute (2012). Picture: Paul Marotta/Getty Images

12. Gustav Mahler enjoying some family time with wife Alma, and daughters Anna and Maria (1910)

    

    Gustav Mahler enjoying some family time with his wife Alma and daughters Anna and Maria. (1910). Picture: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy

13. Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi with his beloved dogs (1800s)

    

    Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi with his dogs. (1800s). Picture: Alamy

14. Composer Benjamin Britten and English tenor Peter Pears having a rather sombre picnic (1954)

    

    Artist and set designer John Piper, composer Benjamin Britten and English tenor Peter Pears having a break while in Venice for the premiere of Britten's opera 'The Turn Of The Screw'. (1954?). Picture: Erich Auerbach/Getty Images

15. Gustav and Alma Mahler taking a stroll nearby their summer residence in Toblach (1909)

    

    Austrian composer Gustav Mahler and his wife Alma take a stroll nearby their summer residence in Toblach. (1909). Picture: Imagno/Getty Images

16. Composer Sally Beamish at her home in Scotland, on a hammock, with a dog (2014)

    

    Sally Beamish on a hammock, with a dog. Picture: Alamy

17. Soviet composers Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian, just hanging out (date unknown)

    

    Soviet composers Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian just hanging out.. Picture: Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

18. Composer John Philip Sousa among his four-legged “musical friends” (1922)

    

    US composer John Philip Sousa among his four-legged "musical friends". Picture: George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images

19. Leonard Bernstein at lunch with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1946)

    

    Leonard Bernstein at lunch with fellow composer Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Massachusetts. (1946). Picture: Erika Stone/Getty Images

20. Pioneering composer Amy Beach posing for a photo with four American female songwriters (1924)

    

    Pioneering composer Amy Beach with four American female song writers in April, 1924. Picture: Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy Stock Photo

21. Claude Debussy, flying a kite with Louis Laloy

    

    Claude Debussy flying a kite with Louis Laloy. Picture: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

22. Leonard Bernstein, sitting atop a tree in Israel (date unknown)

    

    Leonard Bernstein, up a tree in Israel. Picture: Wiki

23. George Gershwin photographed while painting a portrait of Arnold Schoenberg (1936)

    

    George Gershwin photographed while painting a portrait of Austrian composer Arnold Schonberg. Picture: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images