To mark the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death, DG has released an album of world premiere recordings and rarities featuring violinist Gidon Kremer, violist Nils Mönkemeyer, pianists Daniil Trifonov and Yulianna Avdeeva, Kremerata Baltica, the Dresden Staatskapelle conducted by Thomas Sanderling, and others. Most of the pieces were recorded at the International Shostakovich Festival in Gohrisch, the world’s only annual Shostakovich festival.

Highlights include three instrumental fragments from the opera The Nose; Anti-Formalist Rayok, a satirical cantata written as a response to the composer’s public condemnation by the Soviet regime; the Impromptu for viola and piano, and various solo works for solo piano.

“I’m very grateful to the organisers of the International Shostakovich Festival Gohrisch for premiering previously unperformed music by Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich,” says Irina Shostakovich. “I’m sure [the album] will be hugely and deservedly popular with all those who love his music.”