Moderato for Cello and Piano

Moderato is presumably dated to its location inside a draft autograph of the Sonata for Cello and Piano op. 40, started on August 15, 1934 in Moscow. It was written with the same green ink that Shostakovich wrote in July 1934 in Polenovo Four Fugues for piano. It can be assumed that Moderato was composed in the same place and at the same time - in Polenovo in July or in the first half of August, before leaving to Moscow. Perhaps Shostakovich wrote this piece as an exercise before starting work on a cello sonata: the beginning of Moderato and the beginning of the third part of the sonata are intonationally similar.