Piano Concerto No. 1 (Shostakovich)

The Concerto in C minor for Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra, Op. 35, was completed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1933. The concerto was an experimentation with a neo-baroque combination of instruments.

The concerto was premiered on 15 October 1933 in the season opening concerts of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra with Shostakovich at the piano, Fritz Stiedry conducting, and Alexander Schmidt playing the trumpet solos. "By all accounts, Shostakovich played brilliantly" and the concerto was well received. The performance was repeated on 17 October.

Despite the title, the work might more accurately be classified as a piano concerto rather than a double concerto in which the trumpet and piano command equal prominence. The trumpet parts frequently take the form of sardonic interjections, leavening the humor and wit of the piano passage work. The trumpet does assume relatively equal importance during the conclusion of the last movement, immediately after the cadenza for piano solo. Years after he wrote the work, Shostakovich recalled that he had initially planned to write a concerto for trumpet and orchestra and then added the piano to make it a double concerto. As he continued writing, it became a piano concerto with a solo trumpet.

After writing the orchestral version, Shostakovich wrote an arrangement for two pianos (without orchestra or trumpet). In the two-piano version, the solo piano part is more elaborate. The metronome indications and tempo markings of the two-piano arrangement differ from those of the orchestral version.

The concerto comprises either three or four movements, depending on the interpretation:

The Moderato is sometimes seen as an introductory passage to the Allegro con brio rather than as a separate movement. However, it is usually considered to be the third of four movements, as the moods of the two are very different. While the "Moderato" is of a serious nature, the "Allegro con brio" is in a somewhat lighter tone. Some recordings feature only three movements, with the last marked as Moderato – Allegro con brio. The concerto is concluded by a brief but intense cadenza, with the strings reentering to build tension near the finish. The movement comes to a close with short C Major bursts of the strings and piano, accompanied by the humorous trumpet.

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Wikipedia