Twelve Preludes (Ustvolskaya)

Twelve preludes for solo piano, composed 1953. Though written at a time when Ustvolskaya was still formally associated with the Leningrad Conservatory, the preludes show no accommodation with Soviet aesthetic demands: each is terse, unornamented, and emotionally extreme. They span a range from quiet, sustained austerity to percussive violence. Shostakovich, who had been Ustvolskaya's teacher and who was deeply influenced by her work (a relationship she later contested bitterly), regarded the preludes with great admiration.

Treat each prelude as a complete world in miniature: no two should sound the same in approach. The very short ones need to be experienced as concentrated statements, not miniatures — their brevity makes them more intense, not less. Do not allow the percussive passages to become merely 'modern' in a generic sense: each struck chord has a specific weight and context.