Victor Poltoratsky composed his piano cycle of 24 preludes and fugues in 1967 - 1971 (the author was still a student of the Moscow Conservatoire). Even then, the work made a enormous impression both on professors and students of the Conservatoire. In spite of the author's young age, the composition was written with great skills and brilliance. Most of the pieces are bright concert things and might adorn any kind of Klavierabend.
The pieces are different by their character; there is a lot of humor as well as dramatic moments, lyricism and elements of parody. The composer enjoyed using music quotations in his works. For instance, in Fugue no. 6 he included the Fantomas motive from a French film that was extremely popular at the time. Fugue no. 9 ends with a famous military song Nightingale, nightingale, you little bird. The listener might hear the allusion of the Argentinean tango (in Prelude no. 11) as well as folk song from Odessa, a city on the Black Sea cost known for it's specific cultural traditions. In Fugue no. 15 the music from a popular childrens' cartoon was used, and in the end of Fugue no. 18, there's another funny famous children's song, well-known from the XIX century (so called Chizhik-Pyzhik). The beginning of another Fugue (no. 23) might easily be associated with the first bars of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
The cycle consists of two parts: the first part opus 16 with preludes and fugues in sharp keys, and the second one opus 17 contains pieces in flat keys. The pieces are arranged in a circle of fifths.
In 2006, Preludes and Fugues were published by Jurgenson Publishing House.
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