Aphorisms
(1927) (Aphorismen: Zehn Stücke für Klavier) 13Ten pieces for piano
Duration: 12'
Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes
/ Sikorski for the UK, British Commonwealth (excluding Canada), Republic of Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Israel.
Repertoire Note
The ten brief movements of Shostakovich’s ‘Aphorisms’ look back to Prokofiev’s youthful sequences of piano miniatures such as his ‘Visions fugitives’ and ‘Sarcasms’. At the same time, they outdo Prokofiev in the violence and wilfulness of their modernism. Angular, dissonant and virtuosically unpredictable, these little pieces show the young composer determined to carve out a compositional language of his own, with as little connection to the past as possible.
The composer gave the premiere in Autumn 1927.
Note by Gerard McBurney
