Concerto for Piano No. 1 (Concerto for piano, trumpet and strings), Op. 35 (1933)

Shostakovich’s evergreen first piano concerto, scored for the unusual combination of a string orchestra and solo trumpet, was written for himself to play and is designed to show off all his distinctive strengths as a pianist: brilliance and lightness of touch, dry humour alternating with a treacly almost jazzy sweetness, occasional moments of virtuosic strength, and the ability to switch in an instant from one dramatic character to another.

Full of jokes and parodies of the great classical masters like Haydn and Beethoven, this is a wonderfully boyish and light-hearted work that has retained a constant place in the concert repertoire, most of all for the infectious pleasure that it affords both to audiences and to performers. Each of its four movements has its own distinctive colour and unpredictable shape and the whole piece is over in around 20 minutes.

Note by Gerard McBurney

Sketches and rough drafts of Op. 35 are being kept in the Shostakovich family archives. A number of musical quotations can be heard throughout the score. Shostakovich quotes the initial motiv of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Op. 57 ‘Appassionata’ several times in the first and second movement. The main theme of ‘Anitra’s Dance’ from Edvard Grieg’s incidental music to Ibsen’s ‘Peer Gynt’ appears in the opening movement. The theme of the finale from Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony is heard in the Lento movement. The fourth movement of Shostakovich’s Concerto shows especially numerous quotations: Extensive citations from Shostakovich’s ‘Declared Dead’, Op. 31, 1931, and a theme from ‘Columbus’ Op. 23, 1929. The street tune ‘O, du lieber Augustin’ (heard on trumpet), Joseph Haydn’s Piano Sonata in D major Hob XVI/37 (Allegro con brio), the first theme of ‘Kleines Potpourri’ from Paul Hindemith’s Kammermusik, Op. 36, 1 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Rondo a capriccio ‘Die Wut über den verlorenen Groschen’, Op. 129, in the piano cadenza.

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1. Allegretto
2. Lento
3. Moderato
4. Allegro con brio