It is virtually impossible for those born and nurtured in a Western democracy to understand the appalling conditions under which Shostakovich and other musicians with enlightened or progressive ideals worked. You may join with Julianna Avdeeva in celebrating the 24 Preludes and Fugues(composed at white hot heat between 1950 and 1951) as 'the entire spectrum of his soul' and celebrate no less 'one of the greatest works for piano of the twentieth century,' but the Russian response after the first performance was very different. Out came the numbingly familiar accusations of 'formalism,' of writing insufficiently in the spirit of the people,, 'amorphous' and failing both to acknowledge 'the greater glory of the party.'
Today, Shostakovich's heavily maligned masterpiece is in the repertoires of a great many pianists and Yulianna Avdeeva joins Tatiana Nikolayeva, Alexander Melnikov, Vladimir Ashkenazy and more recently Igor Levit to name but four, who have had the courage and love to place their performances on record.
Throughout, Avdeeva has you lost in wonder at her poise and lucidity in works ranging from a sardonic humour to a magisterial utterance, to a formidable range and complexity. Singling out particular performances would be to insult her consistency and quality, Yet how can you not stress the seraphic calm she brings to the opening Prelude and Fugue or to her dizzying momentum in the following Prelude. If she is all gentleness in No 7, she is no less sharp and acute in the way the composer's outwardly playful and skittish tic-toc momentum in No 8 is resolved in a lengthy fugue, one of many where an already ambivalent mood is clouded by unease and ever-present anxiety. What concentrated energy she brings to the twelfth Prelude's angular lines or, by way of contrast, a special serenity to the magical chimes of the Prelude from No 13. She is so much more than equal to the massive final Prelude and Fugue(No 24) and as a further temptation she gives you an additional Prelude and Fugue in C sharp minor, the former a completion of the composer's original sketch by Krzysztof Meyer, the latter Meyer's own fugue 'in the style of Shostakovich.'
And so, while I would never want to be without those recordings by Tatiana Nikolayeva the inspiration and dedicatee of the Preludes and Fugues where her commitment to such a magnificent gift shines through in every bar, to Vladimir Ashkenazy, Alexander Melnikov and, more recently, Igor Levit, Yulianna Avdeeva takes her place among these celebrated pianists making it hard to imagine a performance of greater dedication; so clearly a labour of love.' There are also legendary selections from Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter, nor can I resist mentioning Terence Judd's unforgettable exuberance in the wild, crazy-paving intricacies of the Prelude and Fugue No 15 taken from the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the playing of a pianist tragically lost to the world at the age of twenty-two.
Bryce Morrison