Reception
This concerto is sometimes dismissed as an unimportant work by the composer, especially in comparison to some of his symphonies and string quartets. In a letter to Edison Denisov in mid-February 1957, barely a week after he had finished work on it, the composer himself wrote that the work has "no redeeming artistic merits". It is suggested that he wanted to pre-empt criticism by deprecating the work himself (having been the victim of official censure numerous times), and that it was actually meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Despite the apparent simplistic nature of the second piano concerto, the public has always regarded it warmly, and it stands as one of Shostakovich's most popular pieces.
Read more about this topic: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Shostakovich)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)