Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto

Dmitri Shostakovich（1906.09.25~1975.08.09） was one of the great SovietRussian composer and pianist during the20thcentury. He achieved remarkable famein composition. He composed in lots of genre, which included symphony, stringquartet, concerto, opera, ballet, song cycle, oratorio, play, and film music. In writing,Shostakovich kept the classical music figure, and stayed with traditional Russianmusic feature constantly. He used his own hybrid melody and unique tonality to let hismusic become outstanding among contemporary music.There are two different styles of piano concerto in his hundreds output. One isPiano Concerto No.2, it is written in traditional piano concerto form which has threemovements “Allegro-Andante-Allegro.” The first and third movements are joyful andbrightness, but the second movement has totally different styles which are Sarabandefeature and romantic nocturne style. It was called “the most beautiful movement incontemporary music.” It became one of the most popular piano concertos for playingon stage, and it is a great repertoire to analyze Shostakovich’s music as well.This article is written in three chapters: the first chapter tells the life of DmitriShostakovich, the style of his music, and simple background of his Piano ConcertoNo.2, which for leading next two chapters. The second chapter shows the feature ofmelody, rhythm, harmony, and a deep result of the music form, in case to catch thespirit of his composition. In the third chapter, writer using practical learningexperience to analyze the difficulty of this concerto, also give a way to solve. Ascomparing different versions from three famous pianists which are DmitriShostakovich, Marc-Andre Hamlin, and Elisabeth Leonskaja, to comprehend thisconcerto in different tempos, dynamics, and tone colors. Overall, after thoseresearches and analysis, hopefully this article might be provided some practical valuein piano performance and teaching for Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No.2.