Profil Edition Günter Hänssler is progressively releasing all the recordings that the great Russian virtuoso Sviatoslav Richter made in his Sturm und Drang period between 1945 and 1963. Most of them were largely unknown in the West during the Cold War, as Richter could perform only behind the “Iron Curtain” till 1960, that is to say, in the Soviet Union and the satellite states of Eastern Europe. Profil Edition Günter Hänssler has already released CD box sets with Richter's interpretations of works by Ludwig van Beethoven (PH 16030), Franz Schubert (PH 17005), Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms (PH17967), Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin (PH18041) and Sergei Rachmaninov and Sergei Prokofiev (PH19052).

The present 5-CD set is devoted to the great Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who like the composers listed above was an accomplished pianist. The interpretations of Sviatoslav Richter have been complemented by recordings of Emil Gilels and Tatyana Nikolayeva. Another highlight of this collection is interpretations of Dmitri Shostakovich, playing his own compositions.