Shostakovich: Preludes & Fugues Op 87 album review – Avdeeva brings a light touch in an accomplished performance
Comparing Nikolayeva's performances with those by Yulianna Avdeeva on her new set is fascinating. Avdeeva, who won the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2010, takes a lighter approach, less forthright, and perhaps not digging as deeply into the barely disguised tragedy of the E minor Prelude as Nikolayeva does, but equally dazzling in the exuberant display of the A minor. She finds exactly the right mood of delicate insouciance for the F sharp minor prelude, too, and for the mysterious halting fugue that follows.
Avdeeva follows her performance of the set with a recording of a prelude in C sharp minor that Shostakovich originally drafted for his Op 87 set, but discarded unfinished; the Polish composer Krzysztof Meyer completed the draft and added a fugue of his own. She gave the world premiere of the complete work in 2020, and it makes a neat envoi to a very accomplished performance.
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