Our milestone work by Shostakovich holds a rightful place in the line of great piano quintets going back to Schumann’s of 1842. Combining the rigor of Bach with the powerful energy and extreme irony of Soviet era music, the work is a milestone not only of chamber music but also of Shostakovich’s career: it won him the coveted Stalin Prize. This essential quintet is accompanied by a youthful Beethoven sonata and Mendelssohn’s appropriately tempestuous first Piano Trio.

Performers
Juho Pohjonen, Piano
Alexander Sitkovetsky, Violin
Richard Lin, Violin
Matthew Lipman, Viola
Paul Watkins, Cello