Shostakovich: Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 12

This release is the first in a projected series exploring Russian Piano Music. This recording gathers together four Russian composers who were contemporaries and also Britain’s leading composerpianist, Ronald Stevenson, who is highly revered by Russian piano scholars (his piece Recitative and Air was commissioned by the Union of Soviet composers, and in fact became an ‘In memoriam’ elegy on the sudden death of the Soviet master).

Of the six featured pieces, those by Myaskovsky, Stevenson and Shchedrin are otherwise unavailable elsewhere in the catalogues. The booklet contains highly informative notes by Murray Mclachlan.

As a concert artist Murray McLachlan has received outstanding critical acclaim for intelligent and sensitive interpretations and superb technical ability. His prolific discography, mostly for Divine Art, Olympia and Dunelm, has received long-standing international recognition and includes over thirty commercial recordings, including the complete sonatas of Beethoven and Prokofiev and many rarities.

Murray McLachlan has given first performances of works by many composers, including Martin Butler, Ronald Stevenson, Charles Camilleri, Michael Parkin and even Beethoven! He is Head of keyboard at Chetham’s School of Music and tutor at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, as well as Artistic Director both of the Chetham’s International Summer School and Festival for Pianists, an event which attracts outstanding musicians annually from all over the world, and the Manchester International Concerto Competition for Young Pianists, which began in 2007.

Russian pianist Boris Petrushansky started lessons with legendary pianist and pedagogue Heinrich Neuhaus in 1965 Moscow, a period of severe Soviet repression, the same cultural and social environment in which Shostakovich himself was captivated for his whole creative life. Like few others Petrushansky knows how to express the irony, the bitterness, but also the hope of Shostakovich’s piano works.

Petrushansky played with the world’s most famous orchestras and conductors (Gergiev, Abbado, Fedoseev, Salonen) and worked as partner with Leonid Kogan, Igor Oistrach, Misha Maisky and Dmitri Sitkovetsky. He is also active as professor at the famous Imola piano school in Italy.

[recorded 1992-2003, licensed from Stradivarius]