Pianist Sofia Sacco is committed to playing and recording all of Shostakovich's works for piano, and will perform his complete piano works as an Artist in Residence for the Società del Quartetto di Bergamo.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues became a form of self-expression and 'self-healing' for him, allowing him to unleash his artistic genius without the constraints of official Soviet ideology.
Compositional Technique
Unlike Bach's progression by semitones, Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues follow Chopin's method of ascending fifths, creating a more nuanced chain of modulations.
Composition History
Dmitri Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues were inspired by J. S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier after Shostakovich served as a juror at a Bach bicentenary festival in 1950.
Performer Biography
Sofia Sacco, the pianist on this album, holds a degree in Physics from the University of Padua in addition to her musical career.
Historical Context
Shostakovich composed these Preludes and Fugues during a period of intense artistic censorship and terror in the Soviet Union under Stalin's rule, when he had been condemned for 'antipopular formalism'.
Critical Reception
The first performance of the Preludes and Fugues in 1951 faced strong opposition from the Union of Composers, who described the work as 'ugly' and 'distorted'.
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Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues
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