D a v i d R a b i n o v i č
(On Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues op.87, D.S.)
(On Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues op.87, D.S.)
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His first plan had been to write something in the nature of technical exercises in the polyphonic genre for the purpose of perfecting his own skill. Later he decided to extend the plan and wrote a cycle similar to Bach's Wohltemperiertes Clavier. Shostakovich warned his listeners that he did not regard his collectionas a single composition but as a series of separate pieces of similar genre not connected by any common idea. In order to appreciate the extreme modesty of this statement it will be sufficient to quote from what a critic said of these Preludes and Fugues when they were performed by the Soviet pianist Svyatoslav Richter (AUDIO)
"They dropped like precious stones from Richter's fingers, sparkling with all the colours of the rainbow"
There had been fugues in Shostakovich's work before; I will recall only the beautifully expressive fugue in the Piano Quintet. He does not attempt the stylization of this ancient musical form; here, too, he avoids the aesthete's gluttonous enjoyment of the archaic. The novelty of the Preludes and Fugues (op. 87) is in their melodic bonds with Russian folk songs, sometimes direct and sometimes through Mussorgsky; there is novelty in the dynamics of many of them, dynamics that composers of Bach's time knew nothing about; there is novelty in the variety of the emotional content of the various pieces where we meet with epic majesty and stormy fervour, inspired elegy and racy brilliance, song themes and measured dance themes. The language of the cycle is, furthermore, typical of the later Shostakovich and speaks of the tremendous initiative displayed by the composer in putting his plan into effect. The cycle of Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues was an important step towards the elaboration of Shostakovich's own bright, bold, original piano style. The next step was the Concertino for Two Pianos (op. 94, 1953) which appeared two years later.
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DAVID ABRAMOVICH RABINOVICH
(From: 'DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, COMPOSER'. Foreign languages Pub. House, 1959)
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DAVID ABRAMOVICH RABINOVICH
(From: 'DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, COMPOSER'. Foreign languages Pub. House, 1959)
© Tutti i diritti sono riservati ai legittimi proprietari. La fonte originaria viene sempre citata o collegata con un link alla stessa. In questo Blog OGNI citazione o riproduzione di brani/foto/immagini o di parti d'opere sono UTILIZZATI a soli fini di ricerca scientifico-artistica, il cui utilizzo avviene secondo finalità illustrative o di discussione e per fini NON commerciali. Nessun Adsens è introdotto, come altre forme pubblicitarie finalizzate al profitto.