Shostakovich: Piano Quintet & Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok

Featuring

Catherine Montier
Christophe Gaugué
Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian
Raphaël Pidoux
Vincent Coq
Ekaterina Sementchuk

Trio Wanderer
Dmitri Shostakovich

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Notable Performances

The Piano Quintet premiered on November 23, 1940, at the Moscow Conservatory, and its immense success overwhelmed Shostakovich, who spent the night wandering the streets.

Composition History

The Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, a vocal and instrumental suite, was completed on February 3, 1967, and premiered on October 23, 1967, in Moscow.

Compositional Technique

The Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok is structured to explore various instrumental combinations, starting with duets, progressing to trios, and concluding with all four performers in the final song.

Compositional Technique

The Piano Quintet is symmetrically organized around a central Scherzo, with themes showing structural and inflectional similarities across its five movements, and strong ties to Bach and the Baroque tradition.

Composition History

Shostakovich's Piano Quintet was composed at the suggestion of the Beethoven Quartet, a prestigious Soviet ensemble, after they performed his String Quartet No. 1 in 1939.

Notable Performances

The premiere of the Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok featured renowned performers Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano), David Oistrakh (violin), Mstislav Rostropovich (cello), and Moishe Weinberg (piano).

Compositional Technique

The Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok features Shostakovich's first, albeit timid, attempt at dodecaphony, a compositional technique using all twelve notes of the chromatic scale.