Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major, Op. 102

When Dmitri Shostakovich was growing up, Russian composers, poets, novelists, and painters formed a true avant-garde. Before long, however, the political climate changed, and ideas about the arts changed, too. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Shostakovich’s symphonies and his two operas fell under Communist attack. Aesthetic theoreticians faulted the symphonies for their bourgeois decadence and ideological formalism; consequently, they were withdrawn from circulation. After Stalin’s death in 1953, artists were again able to express themselves with more freedom and less fear of political reprisal in a new climate of relative tolerance and liberalization. At that time, Shostakovich was gradually restored to favor and allowed to earn a living.

Shostakovich wrote the Piano Concerto No. 2 for the 19th birthday of his son, Maxim, who premiered the work on May 10, 1957, with the USSR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nikolai Anosov. The concerto expresses lightheartedness similar to that of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 but lacks the dark cynicism of its predecessor; rather, its main characteristic is a sense of freedom and abandon. It overflows with youthful vigor, vitality, even romance, reflecting the qualities of a son entering his last teen year. The piece eschews traditional virtuosity, including dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra, exchanging themes and variations instead of the traditional opposition of the soloist and the orchestra. Here, the messages that Shostakovich apparently hid are family references, jokes that only he and Maxim appreciated.

The elegant first movement, Allegro, opens with a lively and amusing solo bassoon introduction before the piano’s entrance with the cleverly joking main theme. The piano enters lightly and unassumingly, introducing much of the melodic material, which contains very surprising twists. The melodic material is often doubled at the octave in both hands; the bright, jaunty themes yield to a military march-like subject for piano and orchestra, complete with snare drum. (This military section was featured in the movie Fantasia 2000 in a segment called “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.”) Moments of extreme dissonance interrupt, but overall, playfulness prevails, with the brilliant wind orchestrations providing a contrapuntal background. In a broad, dramatic moment, the full orchestra triumphantly joins in the main melody, after which the piano recapitulates the theme lightly, almost delicately, in an extended solo. Shostakovich creates an extremely inventive development, followed by a huge climax with all the themes joined at the end, with the piano in unison with the piccolo before the close.

The haunting slow movement, Andante, which moves from minor to major and back, has been said to be the guarantee of the concerto’s lasting popularity. A lyrical slow movement relying heavily on the strings, it forms the dramatic center of the work and is straightforward in its structure and its musical language. It provides a searching meditation with tender, lyrical lines, the sort of longing melody one associates with Russian composers of an earlier, more Romantic era. It starts with a protracted, lovely string chorale; when the piano enters, it is with startling beauty. It continues on, often unaccompanied.

The rather dance-like final movement, Allegro, returns to a playful mood, humorously including a passage quoting the well-known, often-feared, and often-loathed Hanon finger exercises that almost every piano student endures. (Shostakovich said his music was the only way he could get his son to practice the Hanon exercises, but it is quite easy to miss this reference unless you have had the experience of practicing the Hanon exercises yourself.) These sections of virtuosic scalar lines propel the music ahead energetically. In this movement, Shostakovich also uses rhythms in a somewhat intentionally off-balance way, reminiscent of the dance music in some of his other works. All is not quite all jocular in this movement, though, as the mood shifts between joyful and anxious throughout. Moments of darkness also make themselves known, even though the frolic unquestionably predominates. The relatively small accompanying orchestra plays a part in maintaining the clarity and lightness of this charming concerto.