The 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 by Dmitri Shostakovich are a set of 24 musical pieces for solo piano, one in each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. The cycle was composed in 1950 and 1951 while Shostakovich was in Moscow, and premiered by pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva in Leningrad in December 1952;Mazullo, p. 24 it was published the same year. A complete performance takes approximately 2 hours and 32 minutes. It is one the most notable examples of music written in all major or minor keys.
History After the Second World War, Dmitri Shostakovich was Russia's most prominent composer.Laurel Fay and David Fanning. 'Dmitry Shostakovich', in Grove Music Online (2001) Although out of favour with the Soviet Communist Party, he was still sent abroad as a cultural ambassador. One such trip was to Leipzig in 1950 for a music festival marking the bicentennial of J.S. Bach's death. As part of the festival, Shostakovich was asked to sit on the judging panel for the first International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. One of the entrants in the competition was the 26-year-old Tatiana Nikolayeva from Moscow. Though not required by competition regulations, she had come prepared to play any of the 48 preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier on request. She won the gold medal.Christina Stevenson. When I was in Leipzig – Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues (2017)
Inspired by the competition and impressed by Nikolayeva's playing, Shostakovich returned to Moscow and started composing his own cycle of 24 preludes and fugues. Shostakovich worked fairly quickly, taking only three days on average to write each piece. As each was completed, he would ask Nikolayeva to come and visit him in his Moscow apartment where he would play her the latest piece. The complete work was written between 10 October 1950 and 25 February 1951. Once finished, Shostakovich dedicated the work to Nikolayeva, who undertook the public premiere in Leningrad on 23 December 1952. Shostakovich wrote out all the pieces without many corrections except the B minor prelude, with which he was dissatisfied and replaced what he had begun initially.Plutalov
Form and structure
Each piece is in two parts—a prelude and fugue—varying in pace, length and complexity (for example, Fugue No. 13 in F major is in five voices, while Fugue No. 9 in E major is in only two voices).
The pieces proceed in relative major/minor pairs around the circle of fifths: first C major and A minor (prelude and fugue nos. 1 and 2), then to one sharp (G major, E minor), two sharps (D major, B minor), and so on, ending with D minor (1 flat). Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28, and Shostakovich's own earlier 24 Preludes, Op. 34 are organized in the same way.
Relationship to Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, an earlier set of 48 preludes and fugues, are widely held to be the direct inspiration for Shostakovich's cycle, largely based on the work's composition history.
References to and quotations from Bach's cycle appear throughout the work.Mazullo, p. 27 For example, Shostakovich begins his C major prelude, the first piece in the cycle, with exactly the same notes that Bach uses in his own C major prelude, BWV 846, which likewise begins The Well-Tempered Clavier. Likewise, the composers' second fugues (A minor for Shostakovich, C minor for Bach) utilize very similar opening rhythms for their fugue subjects (two 16th notes followed by 3 eighth notes, twice in a row). In addition to more direct quotation, Shostakovich also at points imitates the various types of preludes found in the Bach cycle (and in other, similar, Baroque compositions). For example, his A minor prelude is a figuration prelude—a prelude in which the same hand position is used throughout the piece. Examples of this abound in Baroque keyboard literature from composers such as Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, from whom Bach drew inspiration for his own figuration preludes (the C major and the D minor, for example).Ledbetter, p. 56
On a larger scale, the whole structure, ordered and sequenced as it is with no apparent extra-musical narrative, is largely a response to Bach. In Bach's cycle, however, the pieces are arranged in parallel major/minor pairs ascending the chromatic scale (C major, C minor, C major, C minor etc.), which differs from Shostakovich's Op. 87.
But while the cycle "sustains the poise and clarity of Bach's high example", it also makes plentiful use of Russian musical influences. The final D minor Prelude and Fugue, for instance, "equally evokes Mussorgsky's primal choral utterances in Khovanshchina and Boris Godunov, music itself indebted to Russian liturgical chant". In the work as a whole there are also several references and musical ideas taken from Shostakovich's other music or anticipating future work.Woodward
Analysis No.KeyDescription1C majorThe prelude's unbroken chords evokes the first prelude of J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. The tone is mostly pianissimo. The parallels with Bach continue in the fugue; whereas Bach begins with a scaled 4th, Shostakovich has a bare 5th. In contrast to the characteristic harmonic complexity of the prelude, the fugue is written in pandiatonic C major, without a single accidental.2A minorThe prelude is a toccata mostly for one voice, with semiquavers (16th notes) used as an implied cantus firmus and running through the piece in the style of a perpetuum mobile. It is followed by a three-part fugue with a characteristic theme of sevenths and acciaccaturas.3G majorWith its echoes of Orthodox chant and bell, the prelude is composed of a juxtaposition of a pesante theme and a lighter quicker theme. The following fugue is the only one set in time, although this meter is also shared by the F major prelude.David McDade reviewing Igor Levit (Sony 19439809212, 2021) at MusicWeb International4E minorThe prelude begins with an eighth-note appoggiatura figuration phrased in pairs between a sustained cantus firmus in the bass and a lyrical melody in the soprano. There is a consistent legato/half-staccato phrasing throughout the prelude in which Shostakovich imitates Baroque period phrasing.
The fugue is a double fugue in four voices with two distinct subjects developed in separate expositions. The first subject is a slow stepwise melody consisting mostly of half notes and quarter notes, while the second subject is a partial diminution or variation on the first subject (eighth notes instead of quarter notes). About two-thirds into the fugue, Shostakovich brings back the original subject in the bass combined with the second subject in the soprano. The E minor fugue is one of progressive complexity. The composition begins with a quiet, conservative exposition, but it ends with nearly every possible fugal device (invertible counterpoint, stretto, double stretto, diminution, augmentation, retrograde) exploited in the final bars.5D majorThe prelude, a graceful Tchaikovsky-like waltz, maintains a suspended feel through repeated, arpeggiated chords in the right hand played to accompany a simple melody first in the left hand, then swapping roles midway, with sudden ritenutos scattered throughout.
The fugue, marked allegretto, contrasts with the legato feel of the prelude with repeated staccato notes forming the basis of the fugal subject. Three voices develop with contrasting legato passages against the staccato. To further add to the quaint color of the movement, subito forte and piano are mixed in giving the fugue a frankly chipper tone.6B minorBeginning much like a French overture (double dotted rhythms), this prelude remains very tonal throughout. The bass has much of the melodic content – again a device used by Bach in his 48 preludes and fugues.
The following fugue starts with a short introduction. It then continues in a gentle weaving fashion (much like the C minor fugue from Book I of Bach's 48). Much of the piece uses a counter melody against the fugal entries. Thematically, there are anticipations of the Tenth Symphony, completed two years later.7A majorRoles are reversed in this pair between prelude and fugue. The prelude is a two-part invention that begins with a tonic pedal and a cheerful, delicate motif that comes close to Bach in its style. The fugue is constructed from prelude-like arpeggios and contains no vertical dissonances whatsoever, instead creating harmonic motion by sporadically touching on unrelated keys such as B major, D major, and C major.Norris, p 102
The three-voice fugue begins with a statement of the main theme, or subject, in the soprano voice. While fugal subjects usually use stepwise motion, this subject uses only the notes of the A-major triad. This subject is then stated a fourth below in the alto, as would be expected in a Baroque fugue. After a brief interplay between the soprano and alto, the bass is introduced with a statement of the subject, completing the exposition. The modulatory section begins in the minor key; a brief return to the tonic key provides a breath of calm before an increasingly rapid series of modulations. These lead to a climax in A major, signaled by a dominant pedal, but this lasts just four bars before the music plunges into C major. The music then settles down, gently leading to the recapitulation, where a single statement of the subject in the tonic key brings the piece to a close.8F minorJewish influences are evident in both the short, agitated prelude, with its staccato and chromatic textures amplifying the melody, and the massive fugue in three voices increases in intensity as it progresses towards a final resolution with its Picardy third end.Mellers9E majorThe prelude is written on three staves where left and right hands take turns playing on the center staff. The piece with few exceptions consists of unison quindicesima (two octaves apart) melodies beginning first in the lowest tessitura of the piano then the highest. Mixed meters riddle the contour of the simple melodies, and toward the middle, an alto voice of accompanying chords provides diversity to the unison melody. The fugue in time is a frantic scurry with fast notes and staccato markings. Only two voices develop with increasing stretto in the middle culminating at the end when the two voices join in unison as before in the prelude though only with an octave separation.10C minor Like the previous fugue, the prelude (tempo Allegro) is written in the style of a two-part invention with a lively dialogue between the two hands. The polyphony is interrupted three times by a chorale setting in the low register of the piano. The prelude concludes with a flourish of 16th notes in the upper register, the last four notes leading directly into the fugue.