Dmitri Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1, Cello Concerto No.1, Piano Concerto No.2

Featuring

Eugene Ormandy
Mason Jones
Mstislav Rostropovich
Leonard Bernstein
Evgeny Mravinsky
David Oistrakh

The Philadelphia Orchestra
New York Philharmonic
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
Dmitri Shostakovich

Did you know?

1/7

Composition History

The Second Piano Concerto was dedicated to Shostakovich's son, Maxim, who premiered it on his nineteenth birthday, May 10, 1957, as his Moscow Conservatory diploma performance.

Composition History

The premiere of the First Violin Concerto, intended for 1948, was delayed for seven years due to the composer's public disgrace.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Dmitri Shostakovich, the composer, was deeply rooted in the political, social, and cultural environment of his time, with virtually every significant work reacting to specific events in his country.

Performer Biography

David Oistrakh, the violinist for the Violin Concerto, began learning the work as soon as it was finished in 1948, despite encountering numerous unusual and sophisticated interpretative problems.

Performer Biography

Mstislav Rostropovich, the cellist, reportedly learned and memorized the Cello Concerto No. 1 in only four days before premiering it in Leningrad.

Composer Biography

Shostakovich was fundamentally different from Stravinsky and Prokofiev, who could live and work in the West, as long as they found financial reception for their music.

Composition History

Shostakovich wrote the Cello Concerto No. 1 after being greatly interested and inspired by Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto for Cello and Orchestra.