When considering the music of Dmitry Shostakovich, with its focus on theatrical projects in his earlier years and symphonic works thereafter, it is easy to forget the significance of his piano music as a vehicle for some of his most experimental and personal ideas. However this should not come as a surprise, given that the composer was a prize-winner in the 1927 Chopin Competition in Warsaw and appeared frequently, if often reluctantly, as an exponent of his own piano music and that of others. The present recording features some of Shostakovich’s most important piano works, their often radical tendencies fitting in well with the heady years of artistic experimentation in the Soviet Union, before the imposition of the principles of Socialist Realism led to a cultural clampdown.