Melodiya presents an album of Dmitri Shostakovich’s chamber music dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

The Piano Quintet was written in 1940 and became Shostakovich’s first significant achievement in the area of chamber instrumental music. The premiere was a great success. Even the critics who were sceptical about the composer enthused over the new work.

The Piano Trio was written during WWII and dedicated to the memory of Ivan Sollertinsky, a distinguished musicologist and lecturer, a man of great erudition and one of Shostakovich’s closest friends. Sollertinsky’s untimely passing shook the composer, and the pain of personal loss focused his mind on the suffering of millions of people who lost their dear ones in the war.

Alexei Goribol is accompanied by musicians of St. Petersburg, recognized masters of performing art and professors of the oldest Russian conservatory – Ilya Ioff, artistic director and soloist of the Divertissement chamber orchestra from St. Petersburg; Andrei Dogadin, concertmaster of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society; and Alexei Massarsky, prize-winner of international competitions. The recording was made in 2006, the year of Dmitri Shostakovich’s 100th anniversary.