No Ollie, it's not a commercial recording, but a live concert from Bulgaria, presumably many moons ago (details as per the link);

2.00am
Shostakovich, Dmitri (1906-1975): Piano Concerto No 2 in F
Dmitri Shostakovich (piano)
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Konstantin Iliev (conductor)

Googling the conductor's name reveals he was a leading light in Bulgaria's contemporary music scene until his death in 1988, and I'm guessing that the recording was made some considerable time before the composer's death in 1975. A concert performance may well reveal aspects of his pianism not captured during studio sessions...

I dimly remember reading somewhere that one of DSCH's teachers gave him the career advice to "write yourself a concerto that you can take all over the place, playing it yourself and getting your name known".  This is certainly a Russian tradition which continues even today.  I think it partly explains the very light scoring (strings and obligatto C-trumpet) in Pnc Cnc No 1 - it was a work that could be performed almost anywhere.  I didn't realise Shostakovich was still playing his own concerti so late in his career, though.

I think Shostakovich new about Bartok. Bartok was admired very much when I was in college. May be he was not known by many in  Stalin's time. I think Shostakovich most certainly was aware of Bartok and his music. I don't know if it made any influence on Shostakovich's music. May be Bartok made some kind of influence on Prokofiev, but even that I am not sure. There were cross influences between Stravinsky and all other contemporaries.


If Shostakovich was dry pianist it tells a lot about his personality. He probably luck warmth. His music is passionate sometimes, but can be dry too.

The first Bartok piano concerto was in 1926: Shostakovich's first in 1933, so since it's before the big clampdown it isn't impossible that Shostakovich was emulating a foreign tradition of composer pianists touring a concerto. However, surely a stronger example, and closer to home, would have been Prokofiev, whose five piano concerti were written between 1911 and 1932, and at least three of which were premièred by the composer himself, the final one on tour abroad. A recording of that event is still available:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Apr04/Prokofiev_Furtwangler.htm

In any case, wasn't Shostakovich's second (1956) written for Maxim, his son, rather than himself? Maxim is not only the dedicatee, but was also the soloist at the première in 1957.

There is a recording available of Prokofiev playing his third piano concerto. It's pretty good.

Thank you ollie,
I always think about Shostakovich and Prokofiev together (just because they were Soviet composers).
In fact I don't think they liked each other. It is curious to know what Shostakovich thought of Bartok.

I don't think Prokoviev was exciting pianist (in a way Rachmaninoff was). This is for Tony.

We regret to say that the Member is mistaken. If we turn first to Percy Scholes' Dictionary we find indeed an entry under that head. There is such a thing as "Absolute Music" he tells us; it is "instrumental music which exists simply as such, i.e. not 'Programme Music' (q.v.)." We are quite worried though by his use of the word "instrumental" there.

Now there is also, as we would expect, an entry in Grove's Dictionary; but we definitely do not advise Members to refer to it. It is a long entry but it is appallingly bad wrong and biassed in every possible way. Its author is one Roger Scruton.

No, let us turn to a far more authoritative and dependable writer. The admirable English critic and theorist Sydney Grew (our namesake) writes as follows:

"All the permanent art of the world is the art that goes on moulding and fashioning men to its own likeness, so that the art is more vital a hundred years later than it is in the year of its production, and still more vital two hundred years later. Pure art operates on us in the way of nature, helping us to grow according to our kind. It never dies, and it never becomes old-fashioned. The religion, philosophy, or particular idealism from which it rose may pass, yet the art remains, exactly as literature still lives in a language that is dead.

"The art which pleases or depresses according to our temporary mood in the end decays, because it has not the power to create a living, self-developing mood in us. Since Liszt's music belongs to this kind of art, one can say that it will not form part of the permanent possessions of humanity."

Thus our great Sydney Grew. Does he not there excellently refute the Member's suggestions? (Members will know of course that it was Liszt who introduced the term "Programme Music" in contradistinction to "Absolute".)

We would only append here a reminder that true Art must also display 1) the necessity of its subject; 2) the necessity of its production or existence; 3) a self-contained and organic structure in which each part and aspect refers to and requires the other parts, and in some way, indeed in as many ways as possible, contributes to the heightening of the effect of the whole; and 4) the exclusion as far as possible of everything incidental, i.e. not contributing to that heightening.

The Greeks already knew all that; let us try to live up to their example! Judged against this high and absolute standard the man Shortacowitch as we shall shortly have occasion to point out fell in his efforts very very short indeed.

Indeed, George, and 'The Bright Stream' is returning when the Bolshoi come back this July (16th-18th) as part of a season at the Coli (mailing just arrived).