Composed 1924-5; 9 minutes

At the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, St. Petersburg was a city in decline. By the end of the Revolution and the ensuing civil war, some ten million people across the country had died. Millions more would perish in famine. Against this bleak background, the teenaged Dmitri Shostakovich—already diagnosed with tuberculosis—made a sensational debut with his graduation work. The brilliant First Symphony catapulted him to international fame and still sounds strikingly fresh today. 

Around the same time, Shostakovich began work on what he first imagined as a Prelude and Fugue for string octet. The Prelude was completed by December 1924. Six months later the Fugue had transformed into a Scherzo, and the composer now viewed the two movements as part of a projected five-movement suite that he never finished. The resulting Two Pieces, Op. 11 are both experimental and precociously assured. It is as if the young Shostakovich had set himself the challenge of reconciling opposites—writing a scherzo within an elegy in the first movement and an elegy within a scherzo in the second.

The Prelude was written in memory of a young friend, the poet Volodya Kurchavov, who died while Shostakovich was composing the work. Its elegiac opening chords, the falling interval of a dying fifth, and the downward-spiraling main theme provide the building blocks for both movements and lend the pair a sense of unity. Both movements also contain tightly worked contrapuntal passages. In the sharper, more edgy Scherzo— ‘the very best thing I have written,’ Shostakovich declared at the time—these lines gather momentum and drive toward moments of searing intensity.

— Borodin, Ravel and Shostakovich program notes copyright © 2026 Keith Horner.
Comments welcomed: khornernotes@gmail.com