Shostakovich, Piano Concerto no 1

Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, so-called Stalin, did not immediately realize that the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, a work by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, was anti-democratic from head to toe, and alien to the artistic inclinations of the Soviet people. Premiered in 1932 with resounding success, the work remained on the bill for two years until the unlucky day when Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili attended the first performance of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. As a result of such a visit, the play was withdrawn from the stage, losing overnight its status as a masterpiece.

Surviving the purges
It was the first confrontation that the author of the Funeral March in Memory of the Victims of the October Revolution had with the Soviet authorities. It would not be the last. But, as it turned out, comrade Dmitri knew how to navigate in troubled waters.
Dmitri survived the purges of 1948 by remaining serene and composing the soundtrack of a curious film – The Unforgettable Year 1919 – which sang of the courage of the young Comrade Stalin during the war against the White Russians. But for many years he refrained from joining the Communist Party. He only decided to do so in 1960, at a stage in his life when it was not easy to scold a world-famous Soviet artist.

The "confession"
And by the early thirties she had overcome Lady Macbeth's impasse in the style in vogue. That is, by means of a confession. Musical in his case: his Symphony No. 5, from 1937, was subtitled "A Soviet artist's response to just criticism". Nevertheless, confessions aside, it was possible to contrast the orthodox voice, to oppose the ideological mandate, by simply composing for oneself. In this spirit, Dmitri Shostakovich finished his first Piano Concerto in 1933, at the age of 27.

Concerto for piano, trumpet and string orchestra, in C minor
According to the composer himself, the original idea was to compose a concerto for trumpet and orchestra, to which he later added the piano part to build a double concerto, but the involvement of this instrument was gradually increased until the work finally became a piano concerto with the prominent contribution of a trumpet, especially in the last movement. Its premiere took place in Leningrad (i.e. St. Petersburg) in October 1933, with Shostakovich at the piano.

The "quotations"

With a "neo-baroque" combination of instruments and stylistically close to neoclassicism (not counting the cluster at minute 20:54 that interrupts a "circus-like" trumpet), the concerto adds to its undeniably playful character an abundant series of "quotations" to other authors, among them, Ravel, Beethoven and Haydn. This is undoubtedly true, but there are those who have taken things to the extreme, pretending to see in minute 1:06 (and of course, every time the "motif" is repeated) a "quotation" to the first movement of the Appassionata sonata.

Movements:
Depending on how you look at it, the concerto has, or three, or four movements, due to the fact that the third, in addition to its brief duration, links without pause with the last.

00:00  Allegretto - Two contrasting themes

07:14  Lento - Surprisingly lyrical (quote from Ravel, adagio from the G major concerto)

15:32  Moderato - More like an interlude

17:32  Allegro con brio - Contains the Haydn and Beethoven parodies, with some ragtime, too.

The rendition is by Daniil Trifonov, accompanied by the Marinsky Orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev.