In 1950, with the Cold War in full force, an international Bach festival and competition was held in the city of Leipzig in what was then the German Democratic Republic. The winner was a 26-year-old Russian pianist, Tatiana Nikolayeva.
Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the jurors, and he was sufficiently taken with Nikolayeva's playing that he wrote a collection of 24 preludes and fugues -- reminiscent of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier series -- especially for her.
We'll hear the first four of these sets this week, and continue the series over the next several weeks -- all performed by Tatiana Nikolayeva herself.
