Shostakovich - Piano Concerto No 2 in F major, Op 102

Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102, by Dmitri Shostakovich was composed in 1957 for his son Maxim's 19th birthday. Maxim premiered the piece during his graduation at the Moscow Conservatory. It is an uncharacteristically cheerful piece, much more so than most of Shostakovich's works. This concerto is sometimes dismissed as one of the composer's less important works, especially in comparison to some of the symphonies and string quartets. In a letter to Edison Denisov in mid-February 1957, barely a week after he had finished work on it, the composer himself wrote that the work had "no redeeming artistic merits". It is 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. Despite the apparent simplistic nature of this concerto, the public has always regarded it warmly, and it stands as one of Shostakovich's most popular pieces. The British classical radio station Classic FM holds an annual contest and in 2015 the concerto was voted 26th in the Classic FM Hall of Fame, the highest of any piano concerto except for Rachmaninov's second and Grieg's. WIKIPEDIA

VIDEO: Dmitri Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2 in F major, Op 102 1 Allegro 2 Andante 3 Allegro Denis Matsuev, piano Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra Valery Gergiev, conductor