Renowned pianist Jian Liu joins the NZ String Quartet in celebrating Shostakovich

Playing Shostakovich: It’s strong, intense music, says pianist Jian Liu. Photo / Charles Brooks

The New Zealand String Quartet is taking some extra baggage into its ongoing Shostakovich: Unpacked series – whatever luggage concert pianist Jian Liu brings with him for its final performances commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of the late, great Soviet-era composer and pianist.

NZSQ heads to the Nelson Arts Festival next week before a Wellington encore a month later.

The centrepiece of both is the Viola Sonata, Shostakovich’s final work completed a few weeks before his death in 1975. It features Jian with quartet-founding member Gillian Ansell.

Before then on the programme, though, is the Piano Quintet in G minor. The composer wrote it in 1940, just four years after his challenging Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk opera put him at odds with the Kremlin.

The quintet is beautiful, often mournful – apart from one of Shostakovich’s customarily off-kilter scherzos, a child’s playground tilted at an oblique angle.

The piece won him the inaugural Stalin Prize for music in 1941. Given his earlier political troubles, Shostakovich might well have appreciated the irony of the award, and the 100,000 roubles that came with it.

Jian Liu says the sonata and the quintet are reminders of how varied Shostakovich’s work was.

“There’s a huge breadth of genres that he’s written music for, such as symphonies, quartets, operas, concertos, piano work, chamber music and film scores – you name it and he wrote something for it.”

Is there a tendency, though, to read more into Shostakovich’s music than is there? Does the drama of his life change the way we hear his music?

“As a performer, I’m concerned with the sound and the music, and how I can better communicate my understanding of that,” Liu says.

“So, for me [knowing the background] adds a different perspective.

“But I think even people who don’t know the background still appreciate that it is very strong and intense music. If you feel that, it doesn’t really matter what the story is.

NZ String Quartet with Jian Liu: Shostakovich: Unpacked, Nelson Arts Festival, October 28; Prefab Hall, Wellington, November 25.