Sonata for Viola and Piano. Op. 147. Impromptu for Viola and Piano. Sans op.

Sonata for Viola and Piano.

Op. 147

This publication of the Viola Sonata is based on the edition of the Sonata in Volume 38 of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Collected Works—Muzyka Publishers, Moscow, 1982 (E). The following sources are referred to: the author’s manuscript of the Sonata (A) and the collotype edition of the work that predates all the printed publications, issued by the USSR Muzfond in 1975 (C). In a number of disputable episodes, the following sources are referred to: the viola part (a separate notebook) edited by Fedor Druzhinin and included in E (EP), as well as the viola part of C (CP).

In comments stipulate all the essential differences between E and this edition, as well as all the instances where E coincides in the specified episodes with A and C. Obvious slips of the pen in E are corrected without stipulation. The part-writing guidelines of the P‑no part have been added by the present editor and are not stipulated in the comments.

Impromptu for Viola and Piano.

Sans op.

The author’s manuscript is kept at the Moscow Central State Archives in the fund of Vadim Borisovsky, a famous viola player and teacher, member of the Beethoven Quartet. In 2003, Borisovsky’s widow, Aleksandra De-Lazari, submitted Shostakovich’s manuscript for state storage along with other items from the family archive. According to the historical reference to inventory 1 of Borisovsky’s fund, compiled by Yelena Tsapova, “the description of the fund’s documents was done at the Moscow Central State Archives, at the Centre for the Storage of Documents from Personal Collections in 2013”. It turns out that researchers had had access to Shostakovich’s manuscript for several years, but had not paid any attention to it.

The content of Shostakovich’s manuscript from Vadim Borisovsky’s fund left me with no doubt that it was one of the composer’s unknown compositions—a miniature for viola and piano. The author did not indicate the instruments to be used, but the viola clef in the solo instrument part and the spiccato and pizzicato articulation marks excluded any other interpretation. It turns out that the great Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147 (1975), which was considered the only example of this combination of instruments in Shostakovich’s oeuvre, had a predecessor.