24 Preludes

Shostakovich was a fine pianist, but his failure to win a prize at the 1927 International Chopin Competition disappointed him so much that for a while he gave up playing in public. So it’s striking that he should make his return to the concert stage in 1933 with a set of 24 newly-composed Preludes, on exactly the same tonal scheme as Chopin’s famous 24 Preludes. Was the tribute to the older master at least partly ironic? There’s plenty of vintage Shostakovich humour here, sometimes playful, sometimes dark, not least when the music evokes Chopinesque textures and techniques. But it is striking how little showy virtuosity there is here—strange for a work designed to announce the return of a star pianist. The manner is often intimate, riddling, elusive. There are also pre-echoes of darker things, most strikingly in the E-flat minor Prelude (No. 14), which in a mere two-and-a-half minutes manages to convey something of the stark tragedy to come in Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony (1936).