This is a unique collection of audio documents that captured the genius Soviet composer’s playing for posterity.

The major bonus of the set is a “home-made” recording of the Violin Sonata performed by the composer and David Oistrakh. The four-hand piano transcription of the Tenth Symphony recorded together with the outstanding composer Mieczysław Weinberg will also spark an evident interest.

Shostakovich recorded concertos, chamber ensembles and vocal cycles with some of the greatest 20th-century musicians such as Daniil Shafran, Nina Dorliak, Zara Dolukhanova, Alexei Maslennikov, Maxim Shostakovich and the Beethoven Quartet.

“It was a composer’s playing, but not every composer plays like that”, wrote Nikolai Malko, Shostakovich’s contemporary and a conductor, about his pianistic style. When Shostakovich was a student of the Leningrad Conservatory, he was taught by Professor Leonid Nikolayev. Many outstanding pianists, including Vladimir Sofronitsky, Maria Yudina and Pavel Serebryakov, were his students. As a pianist, Shostakovich performed recitals and was awarded a diploma at the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw in 1927. However, he later limited himself to performing his own music. Shostakovich continued to publicly perform until the mid-1960s when he had to abandon stage performances altogether because of hand disease.

Recorded in 1946–1968