Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, one of the Soviet Union’s greatest composers, was born in Saint Petersburg on September 12, 1906 and died in Moscow on August 9, 1975. Although he composed in a wide variety of genres, he is best known for his fifteen symphonies, works that stand among the finest examples of the genre from the mid-twentieth century. Shostakovich composed his Piano Concerto no. 1 in 1933 with himself as soloist in mind, and he performed it at its premiere in the Leningrad Philharmonic’s Great Hall on 15 October of that year. The work is scored for solo piano, trumpet, and string orchestra.

            The composer’s original title for this composition was “Concerto for Piano with the Accompaniment of String Orchestra and Trumpet.” This nomenclature serves a larger purpose than the mere description of its performing forces. It reveals its composer’s interest in addressing a venerable genre in a new way. Boris Schwartz, writing about the early works of Shostakovich in the New Grove Dictionary of Music , speaks of the composer’s “split focus: concern for tradition against challenge of it.” Schwartz’s observation goes far in explaining the mercurial changes of mood in this Concerto; moods that range from deep introspection to gentle parody to completely raucous satire. The composer’s free borrowing from Beethoven and Haydn side by side with the quotation of a popular street song and jazz style also bears evidence to the composer’s desire both to embrace and to reject the past.

            Shostakovich’s training as a pianist began at the age of nine with lessons at home with his mother, who was an accomplished pianist. He continued his studies in piano at the Petrograd Conservatory under the tutelage of Leonid Nikolayev, at which time he also began formal lessons in musical compostion under Maximilian Shteynberg. The young student had difficulty in deciding which career to pursue, and the high concentration on works for the piano from his early years reflects this. As the virtuosity of the solo writing reveals, Shostakovich was a pianist of formidable ability. The Concerto is in four movements, although the third movement is little more than a transition from the second to the fourth. The first movement is an Allegretto in C Minor that begins with a splash of color from the piano and trumpet. This is followed by a parody of Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata. The parody in the second movement is more subtle, as a gently modal Lento gains in intensity, growing toward a passionate climax, after which the muted trumpet recalls the opening theme. The last movement, Allegro con brio, casts off all pretenses of dignity as each new theme introduced becomes more unbridled and sarcastic than the one before. The overall character of the movement is highly reminiscent of a cheeky Haydn rondo, filled with surprise after surprise, racing to a breathless virtuoso ending. 

            The trumpet takes on the role of a co-soloist in this piece, very much in the way that Shostakovich used the French horn in his Concerto for Cello and Orchestra no. 1 (1959).  The Danish composer Carl Nielsen also adopted this procedure in his Concertos for Flute and Clarinet. Shostakovich shied away from speaking about his Piano Concerto no. 1, except to say that he was a “Soviet composer and I feel our epoch to be a heroic epoch, full of vigor and joy of life.” Regarding the humor found in the Concerto, he stated “I want to defend the right of laughter to appear in what is called ‘serious’ music.” He further affirmed this: “When the listeners laugh at a concert of my symphony music, I am not in the least shocked--I’m pleased.” 

Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2025