Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2

Maurice Ravel was a skilled pianist, but is also famous for his sophisticated and imaginative approach which utilises every potential for sound the orchestra has to offer. Early on, he recognised the possibilities of combining the two capacities and from the late nineteenth century, he regularly orchestrated music that he had already composed for piano.

One of Ravel’s best known and most popular pieces for piano is the Miroirs suite, Mirrors, which is dedicated to various members of the French artists’ group Les Apaches. Ravel himself was one of the members. The group frequently met with artist and music connoisseur Paul Sordes, to whom the third movement, Une barque sur l’océan (A Boat on the Ocean) is dedicated. Ravel also orchestrated the movement Alborada del gracioso (The Jester’s Aubade) from Miroirs, dedicated to author and music critic Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi.

The working title of La valse was Vienne, and then Vienna. It is a tribute to the waltz and to Johan Strauss II. And the music is charged with whimsy and drama; it is humorous and ironic, disarming and brilliant.

Like Ravel, Dmitri Shostakovich was also a driven pianist. He composed his loving Piano Concerto No. 2 as a nineteenth birthday gift for his son Maxim, who was also a pianist and gave the world premiere of the concerto for his graduation from the Moscow Conservatory.

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