Please join us for a concert of the first twelve of Shostakovich’s monumental Preludes and Fugues Op. 87, performed by pianist Sofia Sacco. Combining the highest Baroque form with the colours of Russian folk songs, Shostakovich achieves an unprecedented variety of images and characters, giving life to one of the most spectacular compositions of the 20th century. Composed during a time of Stalinist artistic repression, these compositions were an expression of freedom in a world where freedom did not exist.
In 1950, Dmitry Shostakovich met the young Russian pianist Tatyana Nikolayeva, winner of the Bach competition in Leipzeig. Inspired by her insightful interpretation of Bach, he began to compose a series of 24 preludes and fugues for piano in all the major and minor keys, inspired by Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.
Yet this was a time of terror and oppression for Soviet artists. Shostakovich had been condemned in the Communist Party’s 1948 “antiformalism” decree, after which he was removed from his teaching positions and some of his works were banned. When he first performed his Preludes and Fugues in 1951 in front of the Union of the Composers, Tatyana Nikolayeva (who was in attendance) recalled that the work faced enormous opposition, described as “ugly" and “distorted” with “tendencies of those sins committed by Shostakovich in the past years”. Despite this, Tatyana Nikolayeva advocated for Shostakovich’s work, including it in her programmes for many years to follow.
Shostakovich barely composed for piano; he was celebrated by the Soviet government for his symphonies, where his artistic desires had to bend to the regime’s demands and expectations. So, aside from a technical desire to sharpen his piano technique, Shostakovich may have had another deeply personal reason for embarking on this composition — he had no-one to please or to celebrate with this work, rendering it disarmingly sincere. The composition is wildly experimental and eclectic, each prelude seems to be built around a very specific feeling, idea or sensation, and has a defined character and colour that could stand as a work on its own.
Sofia Sacco writes: “I started working on Shostakovich’s monumental “Preludes and fugues op. 87” around eight years ago. The first one I learnt was number 21, one of the most famous and virtuosic. I was already familiar with Bach’s Well-tempered Klavier having played 24 out of 48 as a requirement for the Italian Conservatoire exam, but Shostakovich opened up a whole different world to me. It is truethat his work is based on Bach’s masterpiece and it is full of quotes and references, but I find that the parallelism in a way is more on the surface. Shostakovich’s work is wildly more experimental and eclectic. All the preludes have such a defined character and color that they could just stand as a collection of miniatures on their own. I find them in a way very impressionistic, as they seems to be built around a very specific feeling, idea or sensation and that is what I try to deliver during the performance. All the fugues have strong individual characters as well, which most of the time feels to be a psychological reaction to the prelude that precedes it. The structure of the fugues is also fascinating, as it serves as a ground for bringing his experiments with polyphony to the extreme: just to mention some, his fugue n. 1 is written only on white keys, the theme of n. 7 is built solely around the major triad, the theme of n. 12 manages to have irregular accents on top of an irregular pulse of 5/4. It is hard to get bored when a work contains such a variety and richness, and it was even harder to not to keep going once I started learning them, as each prelude and fugue feels like a work on its own. Shostakovich is by far my favourite composer, and this is probably the work I am most attached to as it has accompanied me on and off for many years. It is honest and straightforward and shouts freedom in a world where freedom still doesn’t exist.
ABOUT THE MUSICIAN
Italian born pianist Sofia Sacco began playing the piano at a young six, before furthering her skills at Conservatorio Pollini in Padua. Solo recitals at prestigious Italian venues include Sale Apolline of Teatro la Fenice, Cappella dei Mercanti in Turin, Velletri Auditorium, Academic Theater in Castelfranco Veneto, and she appeared as soloists in festivals such as the Monferrato Classic Music Festival, Missione Musica Music Festival, Pleyel Music Festival, the Beethoven Sonata Piano Festival, Royal Academy of Music Summer Festival among others.
Her performance of Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto with the Pollini Symphony Orchestra was a notable highlight. Sofia is an enthusiastic chamber musician, playing regularly in ensembles. She also had the chance to perform Poulenc’s Concerto for two pianos and orchestra in Auditorium Pollini and Metousiosis by Iasonas Maroulis with the contemporary music orchestra Audentia Ensemble. Sofia placed first at various competitions, including the Crescendo International Piano Competition, A. Baldi International Piano Competition, and Piove di Sacco National Piano Competition, she won the Francis Simms Prize at the Royal Academy of Music and she has attended masterclasses with Professors L. Zilberstein, B. Petrushansky, E. Krakovsky, K. Bogino among others. Sofia is passionate about J. S. Bach and D. Shostakovich, of whom she is recording the monumental work Preludes and Fugues Op. 87.
Graduated summa cum laude in 2016, Sofia was awarded the Bettin Scholarship which allowed her to continue pursuing her musical studies with Massimiliano Ferrati. Inquisitive and widely curious, she graduated in Physics at University of Padua before deciding to commit entirely to music.
Sofia is currently based in London where she graduated with Distinction and DipRam Award for outstanding achievements at the Royal Academy of Music as a scholarship student under the mentorship of Professor Rustem Hayroudinoff. Sofia was appointed Hodgson Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music starting from September 2022.