United Kingdom Shostakovich, Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, Nos.1-13: Llŷr Williams (piano). Dora Stoutzker Hall, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff, 16.10.2025. (GPu)
Shostakovich’s set of Preludes and Fugues was written at a difficult time in his career as a composer. In 1948 he, along with Prokofiev, was one of those named in a decree issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party as composers whose work was characterised by ‘formalist perversions’, rather than celebration of the ‘achievements’ of the Soviet Party and government. Most of Shostakovich’s works were banned and he was dismissed from his post at the Moscow Conservatory.
In 1950 he was invited to act as a judge at a Bach Festival in Leipzig on the bicentenary of Bach’s death. There he heard Tatiana Nikolayeva play The Well-Tempered Clavier, an experience which stirred in Shostakovich the desire to write a kind of modern equivalent. He worked on his 24 Preludes and Fugues during 1950 and 1951, and it was premiered by Tatiana Nikolayeva in Leningrad in December 1952.
The 24 Preludes and Fugues undeniably constitute one of the major works written for the solo piano in the twentieth century. Given its length (over two and a half hours), the complexity of much of the writing (especially in the Fugues) along with its emotional and intellectual range, it is no surprise that concert performances of the work are relatively uncommon. Nor, indeed, do recordings abound. I know of only two entirely satisfying recordings of the work: one by Tatiana Nikolayeva (Hyperion 6641) and one by Vladimir Ashkenazy (Decca 446 066 2DH2), though others may have escaped my notice
Llŷr Williams is not, however, a pianist to avoid difficulty. One might even say that he seems to welcome it. Certainly, he did not seem daunted by the 24 Preludes and Fugues, either when he walked on the stage and sat at the Steinway, nor, indeed, when I had, quite by chance, a brief conversation with him a couple of hours before the concert.
In an eminently sensible decision, Williams had chosen to play Nos. 1-13 of the Preludes and Fugues in this concert, and reserve Nos. 14-24 for a further Cardiff concert on April 30th, 2026, thus reducing the demands on his (and his audience’s) stamina.
Williams brings to the keyboard an impressive musical intelligence and a remarkable technical assurance. Having previously heard him playing Beethoven, I have admired his particular gift of maintaining clarity when the music is in several voices (without ever merely simplifying what is in the score) – this was a virtue needing to be exercised in some of Shostakovich’s Fugues.
It would make for an excessively long review were I to comment individually on each of these preludes and fugues. I shall therefore take an overview of the performance and reference individual pieces as part of that discussion.
Williams’s grasp of the larger patterns of these Preludes and Fugues was very impressive; at no point did one feel a loss of direction or a flagging in the performer’s concentration. Shostakovich’s very various ‘miniatures’ set varying problems for any pianist. However, Williams seemed equally at home in, for example, the relative playfulness of Prelude 11 (full of harmonic surprises), and the complex patterns of Fugue No.13 (in which the five-voiced texture was articulated with exemplary clarity).
Elsewhere, particular delights included the beautiful Prelude No.9, unfussily moving in octaves at each end of the keyboard and the sophisticated Fugue No.2, which followed a prelude with more than a little of the toccata about it and is itself replete with wide intervals and harmonic freedoms. It would have been hard not to share Williams’s evident pleasure in this music. I also enjoyed particularly the almost rustic Prelude No.5, played with humour (and without condescension) by Williams.
In short, this was a fine reading of one of the monuments of the twentieth-century piano repertoire; it was a privilege to hear (an enjoy) it. I look forward to hearing the second half of Shostakovich’s Op.87 Preludes and Fugues in April.
Glyn Pursglove