Dmitri Shostakovich won worldwide recognition as a composer of symphonies and chamber music. He was also a remarkable pianist. He only composed relatively little for that instrument and his keyboard music remained for a long time in obscurity. His Sonata n° 2 is classical and poetic, presented in traditional form and represents a break with the modernity of his 1st ; it shows that the Russian composer, while influenced by Prokofiev, Bartok or Hindemith, was also affected by Bach and Fauré. The 24 Preludes, a suite of brief intimist pictures of one page only in length, and which are seldom played in their entirety, but often transcribed for various instruments or orchestra, demonstrate that Shostakovich had the rare ability to compose short works in addition to his enormous symphonies. Johan Schmidt is, without a doubt, the best known Belgian pianist abroad: his interpretation, which can only be described as marvellous, means that this disc constitutes one of the outstanding reference versions.
