24 PRELUDES and FUGUES, Op.87 DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Prelude & Fugue No.12 in G-Sharp Minor D Prelude: Andante [4.44] F Fugue: Allegro [3.25]
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2 CD 24 PRELUDES AND FUGUES, Op.87 DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Prelude & Fugue No.12 in G-Sharp Minor d Prelude: Andante [4.44] f Fugue: Allegro [3.25] DISC 1 Prelude & Fugue No.13 in F-Sharp Major Prelude & Fugue No.1 in C Major g Prelude: Moderato con moto [2.10] h Fugue: Adagio [5.16] 1 Prelude: Moderato [3.10] 2 Fugue: Moderato [4.07] Prelude & Fugue No.2 in A Minor Total timings: [72.05] 3 Prelude: Allegro [0.55] 4 Fugue: Allegretto [1.24] Prelude & Fugue No.3 in G Major DISC 2 5 Prelude: Moderato non troppo [1.48] 6 Fugue: Allegro molto [1.48] Prelude & Fugue No.14 in E-Flat Minor Prelude & Fugue No.4 in E Minor 1 Prelude: Adagio [4.17] 2 Fugue: Allegro non troppo [2.46] 7 Prelude: Andante [2.54] 8 Fugue: Adagio [5.16] Prelude & Fugue No.5 in D Major Prelude & Fugue No.15 in D-Flat Major 9 Prelude: Allegretto [2.02] 0 Fugue: Allegretto [1.56] 3 Prelude: Moderato non troppo [2.55] 4 Fugue: Allegretto [1.50] Prelude & Fugue No.6 in B Minor Prelude & Fugue No.16 in B-Flat Minor q Prelude: Allegretto [1.48] w Fugue: Allegro poco moderato [4.02] 5 Prelude: Allegro molto [2.35] 6 Fugue: Andante [5.53] Prelude & Fugue No.7 in A Major e Prelude: Allegro poco moderato [1.12] r Fugue: Allegretto [2.38] Prelude & Fugue No.17 in A-Flat Major 7 Prelude: Allegretto [1.53] 8 Fugue: Allegretto [3.24] Prelude & Fugue No.8 in F-Sharp Minor t y Prelude: Allegretto [1.03] Fugue: Andante [5.45] Prelude & Fugue No.18 in F Minor Prelude & Fugue No.9 in E Major 9 Prelude: Moderato [2.17] 0 Fugue: Moderato con moto [3.31] u Prelude: Moderato non troppo [3.09] i Fugue: Allegro [1.37] Prelude & Fugue No.19 in E-Flat Major Prelude & Fugue No.10 in C-Sharp Minor q Prelude: Allegretto [1.52] w Fugue: Moderato con moto [2.52] o Prelude: Allegro [2.02] p Fugue: Moderato [4.37] Prelude & Fugue No.11 in B Major Prelude & Fugue No.20 in C Minor e r a Prelude: Allegro [1.13] s Fugue: Allegro [2.04] Prelude: Adagio [4.23] Fugue: Moderato [5.27] which he was working. Of all the great Soviet triumph, inspired by inner thoughts regarding Prelude & Fugue No.21 in B-Flat Major composers, Shostakovich is the most politicised the political system, or more specifically t Prelude: Allegro [1.11] y Fugue: Allegro non troppo [2.41] by historians, and yet he remains the most Shostakovich’s Svengali – the Soviet leader, questioning, at the same time as which he Joseph Stalin? Or is it a true triumph in Prelude & Fugue No.22 in G Minor almost never reveals the answers, and usually which the apparent ambiguity created by u Prelude: Moderato non troppo [2.07] i Fugue: Moderato [3.34] not even the questions. Shostakovich’s acerbic harmony is a red Prelude & Fugue No.23 in F Major herring? We will never know. In Shostakovich’s o Prelude: Adagio [4.08] p Fugue: Moderato con moto [3.31] These theoretical component characters could music we often sense that there is a hidden equally be interpreted as part conflict between message. The ultimate enigma of this great Prelude & Fugue No.24 in D Minor two opposing parts of the composer’s personality, composer is that we can never be sure of what a Prelude: Andante [4.21] s Fugue: Moderato [8.30] a satire upon himself, a lament for the the message is. beloved past and a genuine triumph of the Total timings: [75.58] spirit over adversity. That Shostakovich’s Influence of Bach most popular and most politically savvy work PETER DONOHOE PIANO – his Fifth Symphony – is ambiguous and Shostakovich admired Bach’s music enormously. www.signumrecords.com and enigmatic from first note to last is part This applied in particular to the latter’s of its greatness. toweringly great polyphonic writing - not only in his choral and organ works, but most Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes & Fugues, Op. 87 Union and the Democratic West often dragged Of all Shostakovich’s large scale works, relevantly in Das Wohltempierte Klavier (‘The Notes by Peter Donohoe the names of almost all major Iron Curtain that symphony is the closest in style to the Forty Eight Preludes and Fugues’). Along with artists, poets and composers into a discussion Twenty Four Preludes and Fugues for Piano so many late 19th and early 20th Century In the history of music, few composers have of the relative merits of the two opposing systems. Solo, written 14 years later. With the similarities Russian composers, Shostakovich held been as enigmatic as Shostakovich. As with in his approach to tonality and many other the traditional disciplines of counterpoint, every composer, it is inevitable that his music With hindsight, perhaps one could draw the aspects of his technique of composition comes polyphony and fugal writing essential to the art should display all the contradictions, the conclusion that the struggles Shostakovich a similar enigma. Is the apparent triumph of of composition.’ pain, the nostalgia, and the enigma of the had within himself have sometimes been the huge final fugue (which even shares its mind that created it – sometimes consciously; mistaken for an attempt on his part to reveal key of D minor with the Fifth Symphony and Shostakovich was inspired by the playing of often not. At the same time as this, the aspects of the unimaginably complex and resolves at the end in a massive statement Tatiana Nicolayeva, whom he heard – significantly ubiquitous propaganda war between the Soviet constantly developing political situation in of the major) a deliberate parody of a performing Bach – when he was a jury - 4 - - 5 - member at the Leipzig Bach Competition in composers, and often produced extraordinary is, perhaps more than any of the set, reminiscent notable feature. Eventually the tessitura of the 1951. His admiration for Nicolayeva and his pastiches to order. Such works as The Gadfly of Bach – in particular, the mood of the two characters is reversed, they are desire to create these works for her was such and The Age of Gold demonstrate this, but this Prelude and Fugue that occupies exactly the superimposed, and the unison phrase becomes that he produced all twenty four Preludes and talent sometimes spilled over into his symphonic same position in Volume One of ‘The Forty-Eight’. a chorale The harmonies become increasingly Fugues in a few months. As he wrote them – works – e.g. the second movement of his dissonant, and the piece concludes with in the order in which they appear in the final Piano Concerto No.2. Throughout the Preludes Prelude and Fugue No.2 in A Minor an unresolved suspension played fortissimo, published version – she learned them. That he and Fugues, despite the immense variety and over which pounds the repeated note figure. was able to write so quickly was characteristic the occasional echo of Hindemith, Prokofiev The prelude is a swift toccata – a perpetuum of the composer, but it is also significant as it and of course Bach, there is no pastiche – mobile of whirling sixteenth notes that seems Out of this rising tension catapults the contributes to the feeling that one can take the no poking fun at styles other than his own. to be an accompaniment without a melody. energetic fugue – a wild piece in 6/8 time cycle as conceived as a single work. Everyone of these works is a gem, not only It is punctuated only at one point by a requiring brilliance of finger-work and clarity of originality that makes them all uniquely succession of long Es that threaten to become of texture. This virtuoso fugue in three voices is They were published in two halves, entitled Shostakovich, but also very deeply and a melody, but disappear almost as soon as one of the most demanding of the whole cycle, Volume One and Volume Two. Each volume is sincerely felt. they arrive. and is again reminiscent of Hindemith, with divisible into three groups of four, and each its angular subject and displaced accents. coupling of an adjacent major and minor key VOLUME ONE The fugue in three voices that follows, is a is logical – they easily form an interdependent grotesque dance, with a subject in two sections Prelude and Fugue No.4 in E Minor pair. It is thus satisfying to hear these works Prelude and Fugue No.1 in C Major – a baroque motif of two bars followed by a in groups of two adjacent ones, four (starting series of leaps of a seventh, leading to acerbic The sad prelude is built on drooping pairs of with nos. 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, or 21), twelve (either The opening of this sublime and diverse set harmonic clashes. The keyboard writing is very eighth notes, over which appears a sighing volume separately) or complete. It follows of pieces is already enigmatic. The prelude is demanding; the wide leaps and the clarity needed motif in long notes. The tonality is ambiguous that Shostakovich had in mind the context of based on a rhythmic figure consisting of for this piece demand great finger strength. in characteristic Shostakovich fashion, but E each one when writing its successor. It is of quarter note, dotted quarter note, eighth note minor is rarely far away. Near the end an course valid to play any of them singly, or to and two quarter notes in 3/4 time – reminiscent Prelude and Fugue No.3 in G Major unexpected rising scale takes us into A-flat simply form groups out of selected ones from of a sarabande.