Piano Sonata No. 2 (Shostakovich)

Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 61 was composed in 1943 in Samara, where he had been evacuated due to the Siege of Leningrad, and was premiered by Shostakovich himself on June 6, soon after moving to Moscow. It was his first piano composition since the 1933 Preludes Op. 34.

Dedicated to his former teacher Leonid Nikolayev, it consists of three movements with the following markings:

Piano sonata no. 2 was written between Symphony Nos. 7 and 8. Shostakovich began composing it in January 1943, when he was evacuated to Kuybyshev (now Samara) to avoid the war, and many parts were apparently composed in the city (it was incomplete at the same time). It was completed on March 17 of the same year at the sanatorium in Arkhangelskoye, near Moscow. The premiere was performed in Moscow on June 6, the same year, on the composer's own piano. The sonata is dedicated in memory of Leonid Nikolayev, Shostakovich's piano teacher at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory who had died on October 11 of the previous year.

Originally, it was planned to be composed of four movements, but Shostakovich had a hard time composing this piece. For example, the composition was changed to three movements. It seems that there are traces of many deletions and corrections in the autograph. The reputation after the premiere was low and unpopular, and Shostakovich denied the work as "dust-like work" or "improvisation." His Piano Sonata No. 1 from 1926 experienced the same kind of treatment. This suggested that this area was unsuitable for Shostakovich.

The second sonata is performed more often than the first. There are a number of famous recordings of this sonata, including those by Emil Gilels and Vladimir Ashkenazy.