Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky – Alevtina Ioffe

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) wrote his Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor during 1947/48, in the midst of the Zhdanov “anti-formalist” terror campaign sweeping Soviet cultural life. The work could not be premiered until after Stalin’s death, when David Oistrakh gave the first performance in 1955.