One of the things that makes Shostakovich a great composer is that he is almost always instantly identifiable. Even in the works only the specialists have ever heard of, Shostakovich sounds like Shostakovich. On this disc of piano music, only the Second Piano Sonata is even slightly well known beyond the deepest fans of his music -- and most of the works here are far less well known than that. But all of them sound like the work of the great Soviet composer. The massive, three-movement Piano Sonata from 1943 shares the ...
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One of the things that makes Shostakovich a great composer is that he is almost always instantly identifiable. Even in the works only the specialists have ever heard of, Shostakovich sounds like Shostakovich. On this disc of piano music, only the Second Piano Sonata is even slightly well known beyond the deepest fans of his music -- and most of the works here are far less well known than that. But all of them sound like the work of the great Soviet composer. The massive, three-movement Piano Sonata from 1943 shares the Seventh and Eighth symphonies' heroic rhetoric translated with complete mastery to the requirements of the keyboard. The tender A Child's Exercise Book from 1944-1945 for his children shares the wit of the Second Piano Concerto and the Concertino transferred with complete sympathy to the capabilities of little fingers. Even the sweetly populist excerpts from The Limpid Spring from 1934-1935 and transcribed by the composer shares the slightly ironic sentimentality of the Jazz Suite and...
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