These two piano concertos together form two opposite side of Shostakovich’s life. The first was composed when he was cocky, and full of humour. He just finished his opera Lady Macbeth, which was a big success. Two years later it would be condemned by Stalin, and it had led to his first period of being censored. It lost him his job and his friends, but all of that is in the future, unknown when he wrote his first piano concerto in 1933.
The second is from 1957, when Shostakovich had fathered a child. He composed it as a gift for his young son, and although he can be biting and nostalgic in the 50s, here he shows a warm and heartfelt side, without any of his usual sarcasm.
Somebody told me some time ago that I don’t have that many piano concertos, but I think I’ve managed to change that these last months.