Firma Melodiya presents a new album of the renowned Russian pianist Irina Chukovskaya (Petrova) dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the 20th century classic Dmitri Shostakovich. Chukovskaya has been a long-time collaborator of the conductor Maxim Shostakovich. “I have performed with Irina Chukovskaya on repeated occasions and witnessed her significant artistic achievements,” the musician tells. “This recording of my father’s works is among them. She renders the poignant tragicalness of the images of the sonata, flexible fickleness of the moods of the preludes and paradoxical eccentricity of the Aphorisms with conquering convincingness.” The present release features Dmitri Shostakovich’s most significant works for solo piano – Aphorisms, and early experimental cycle written in 1927, the well-known 24 Preludes for Piano (1932-1933) and Sonata No. 2 for piano (1943), one of the large-scale works of the war period dedicated to memory of Leonid Nikolayev, Shostakovich’s teacher and one of the founders of the Soviet piano school.