PENTATONE releases Shostakovich: Preludes & Fugues Op. 87 with Yulianna Avdeeva in MAY 2025.
SHOSTAKOVICH’S ICONIC OPUS, PAIRED WITH A SKETCH-DERIVED PRELUDE & FUGUE COMPLETED BY KRZYSZTOF MEYER
The internationally renowned pianist Yulianna Avdeeva presents Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues Op. 87, one of the most important works in the piano repertoire. This monumental cycle harks back to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and is considered one of the most demanding works for piano ever written. Avdeeva joins an elite group of pianists who have undertaken the challenge of performing the complete opus, which is rarely heard in its entirety.
To complement this iconic work, Avdeeva also presents the completion of an alternative Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor, discovered by leading Shostakovich expert Olga Digonskaya and completed by composer and Shostakovich biographer Krzysztof Meyer. Shostakovich sketched an initial prelude in C-Sharp Minor in 1950, but then decided to compose a new prelude-fugue pair in this key, which eventually found its way into Opus 87. The sketch of the original prelude was found in the Shostakovich archive in Moscow in 2005; Krzysztof Meyer completed the fragment in 2019 and added his own fugue “in the style of Shostakovich”. This discovery adds a new and exciting dimension to the cycle.
Avdeeva returns to PENTATONE after her acclaimed label debut with Resilience (2023), and Chopin: Voyage (2024), both of which received outstanding reviews for their exceptional artistry and interpretation.
“My first encounters with the music of Shostakovich go back to my childhood, when I performed some of his pieces for children, for example, the cycle Dances of the Dolls. These works are full of delight, humor, and dancelike characteristics, so my first impressions of Shostakovich were of a very upbeat kind of music. Later I realized that those were quite rare instances in Shostakovich’s music — but they exist, alongside his usual mood of dark and desperate moments.
It was a great honor for me to premiere the recently found and completed Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor in 2020 at the Internationale Schostakowitsch Tage Festival in Gohrisch, Germany, where Shostakovich composed his well-known String Quartet No. 8. I feel very grateful and privileged to have had the opportunity to talk with Krzysztof Meyer about his completion of the piece, and about Op. 87 in general. Thus, I am delighted to include the Prelude and Fugue C-Sharp Minor on this album; it’s the first recording of it in the context of the entire Op. 87. The score will be published by Sikorski in 2025.
Finally, it’s an absolute privilege to have recorded this music at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig — the city where Shostakovich was inspired to compose the Preludes and Fugues in the first place — under the auspices of the Gewandhausorchester. I am extremely proud to include this masterwork in my repertoire, initiated by the extensive Shostakovich Festival in Leipzig to honor the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death in 2025, and look forward to my lifelong journey with it!”
Yulianna Avdeeva
Digital Release Date: 30 MAY 2025
Physical Release: JULY 2025
Released physically on standard CD and digital formats for streaming and high-resolution downloads.
