# Shostakovich - Op. 102 - Piano Concerto No. 2



## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

How do you rate this piece?

Here below you find a live concert.

Pianist: Daniel Ciobanu 
Orchestra: Romanian Youth Orchestra
Conductor: Cristian Mandeal


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

I really love this piece, the amazing first movement, beautiful 2nd and fun 3rd movement. Bernstein on the piano is my favourite but there is a recording of Shostakovich himself playing it which is also amazing


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

It's not Shostakovich at his best. Not by a long stretch, but it's a fun, shallow "divertimento", rather in the vein of Kabalevsky's youth concertos.
Shostakovich clearly reserved his deeper thoughts for the string concertos.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Earlier this year I picked this concerto as one of a dozen personal favourites in DSCH's oeuvre for my blog (and Shosty is in my top 5 composers). Still, the actual Artrockometer rating is 5/6 (leaving it behind seven of his works that do get the elusive 6/6), so I voted Very Good.


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

RobertJTh said:


> It's not Shostakovich at his best. Not by a long stretch, but it's a fun, shallow "divertimento", rather in the vein of Kabalevsky's youth concertos.
> Shostakovich clearly reserved his deeper thoughts for the string concertos.


I don’t think there’s many things that are deeper than the second movement of this piece


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

EvaBaron said:


> I don’t think there’s many things that are deeper than the second movement of this piece


Shostakovich himself wrote, in a letter to Edison Denisov, that the work had "no redeeming artistic merits". But even if that comment is to be taken cum grano salis, I can think of at least two dozen of slow movements from his works that convey deeper feelings (at least to me) than the concerto's.
Just take the immediate predecessor of the concerto, the 6th string quartet (op. 101), with its haunting lento. Or the next work in Shostakovich oeuvre, the 11th symphony (op. 103), which has an immensely touching adagio.
I always wondered why people want to see more in this work than just an unpretentious graduation piece for his son. He didn't write it for a top soloist, who would have expected more substance (like Oistrach and Rostropovich for the violin and cello concertos, respectively)


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Love it!! Neat piece...hey, any concerto which starts with a bassoon solo has to have something going for it...lol!!


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I voted very good and my preference:


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

RobertJTh said:


> Shostakovich himself wrote, in a letter to Edison Denisov, that the work had "no redeeming artistic merits". But even if that comment is to be taken cum grano salis,


It seems clearly the least of Shostakovich's concertos. I re-listened to the Bernstein recording last night and I don't care for the piece at all; it's not "actively bad" and the manic motorism of the outer movements might generate a bit of excitement but I don't think I'd miss anything if I never heard it again...


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## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

EvaBaron said:


> I really love this piece, the amazing first movement, beautiful 2nd and fun 3rd movement. Bernstein on the piano is my favourite but there is a recording of Shostakovich himself playing it which is also amazing


The whole piece is very good, but the second movement is one of the best things I've heard in the "second movement" category.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Love this concerto. Nothing but excellent will do. In fact, I love all 6 (2 each for cello, piano and violin) of Shostakovich's concertos.


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

I really like this piece and I am a great fan of Shostakovich as a composer. So an excellent from me...


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

It is one of the few pieces where i allow myself to only listen to one movement in isolation. Can't be doing with the outer movements, but the slow mvt is too divine to miss.


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## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

EvaBaron said:


> I really love this piece, the amazing first movement, beautiful 2nd and fun 3rd movement. Bernstein on the piano is my favourite but there is a recording of Shostakovich himself playing it which is also amazing


I agree strongly with EB's assessment. Overall, in my estimation, Shostakovich's 2nd is one of the finest piano concertos in the classical repertory. The sublimely beautiful andante movement ranks in its power with the most aesthetically haunting melodies of all time. The crazy, exuberant final allegro – truly a stroke of genius – has a rhythmic pattern described (in my Naxos CD album notes) as "oddly lop-sided"; I once also heard it described as having "a hitch in its get-along", but I'm unable to find the source of this.

Regarding Shostakovich's peculiar comment that the work had "no redeeming artistic merits": A Wikipedia article on the concerto notes that "It has been suggested that Shostakovich wanted to pre-empt criticism by deprecating the work himself (having been the victim of official censure numerous times), and that the comment was actually meant to be tongue-in-cheek."


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Nawdry said:


> The crazy, exuberant final allegro – truly a stroke of genius – has a rhythmic pattern described (in my Naxos CD album notes) as "oddly lop-sided"; I once also heard it described as having "a hitch in its get-along", but I'm unable to find the source of this.


There's a whole section in 7/8 meter - 
1 and 2 and 3 and a... 1 and 2 and 3 and a....the section repeats, iirc...


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Nawdry said:


> Regarding Shostakovich's peculiar comment that the work had "no redeeming artistic merits": A Wikipedia article on the concerto notes that "It has been suggested that Shostakovich wanted to pre-empt criticism by deprecating the work himself (having been the victim of official censure numerous times), and that the comment was actually meant to be tongue-in-cheek."


It was probably tongue-in-cheek but it seems highly implausible that one of the pieces where DSCH is stylistically close to a party-line-composer like Kabalevsky would give him trouble with Soviet censors. And that's even less likely 1957 under Khrushchev when the situation was very different from the late 1930s.


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## janwillemvanaalst (5 mo ago)

I first heard this piano concerto played by John Ogdon with Lawrence Foster (1965 recording). The outer movements were "okay", but the slow movement... pure magic. Like a parent comforting his child, assuring it that it is forever safe. Like a hush in heaven. Well, you get the picture.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

The Concerto has been used for two great ballets. I saw one of them (NYCB choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky) two weeks ago and posted on it in the Ballet forum. The other one comes from the Royal Ballet, choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan in 1966 and still in the active repertoire. I would love to see it.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I like it exactly because it's so different to Shostakovich's more typical works (and I prefer it over his first concerto). I think it has something in common with Ravel's concerto in G, and the standout middle movement in some ways brings to mind Rachmaninov. I've got the Bernstein recording. It was used quite effectively in _Bridge of Spies_:


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

I LOVE Shostakovich's PCs. The 2nd has fun moments, but that second movement _Andante_ is truly gorgeous. I would rank this work as excellent, but if a listener is expecting the profundity of his symphonies or concerti for violin and cello, then think again. Of course, this doesn't mean either PC isn't without merit, because this certainly isn't the case. Anyway, both PCs are fun to listen to and offer some relief after listening to his more anguished works.


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