Piano Sonata no. 2 in B minor, op. 61

The Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 61 by Dmitri Shostakovich, the last of his piano sonatas, was composed in early 1943. It was his first solo piano composition since 1933, as well as his second attempt at composing a piano sonata in the key of B minor. Shostakovich began composing the sonata while he and his family were evacuated in Kuybyshev (present-day Samara). A few months before, he heard about the death of his former piano teacher Leonid Nikolayev, which affected him profoundly; the sonata is dedicated to his memory. Originally, Shostakovich had planned a four-movement sonata in C♯ minor, but by March 1943 had abandoned that idea in favor of the work's final three-movement form. Shostakovich premiered the sonata in Moscow on June 6, 1943. The sonata was received with mixed reviews. Ivan Sollertinsky felt it was one of the finest of all of Shostakovich's works. Emil Gilels, an important champion of the sonata, expressed disappointment and compared it unfavorably to Shostakovich's symphonies. Shostakovich himself was unsure of the work's quality; it was one of the few piano works from his maturity that he never recorded. Nevertheless, he told Inger Wikström in 1973 that he regarded the sonata as the most important of his piano works.