Five Pieces for Piano, Op.2

"What am I writing about? About the love of life. I love life in all its manifestations and I highly appreciate the life-giving principle in people" . These words contain the essence of the personality of the remarkable composer, pianist and public figure Tikhon Khrennikov, who claims that his biggest dream has always been music. Khrennikov's debut as a theatrical composer was at the Moscow Children's Theater, but his real popularity and success came when the Vakhtangov Theatre commissioned to him the score for Shakespeare's comedy "Much Ado About Nothing". That's where the composer's generous melodic gift was fully revealed - the main secret of the impact of his music. The songs from the show brought him extreme fame. New songs bearing long lasting charm invariably appear in his subsequent music works for theater and cinema. Song became the basis of the composer's musical style and in many respects theatricality determines the principles of his musical development. The musical themes-images in his works are easily transformed, freely obeying the laws of various genres - no matter whether it is an opera, ballet, symphony or concert. It is with this ability for all kinds of metamorphoses that one of the characteristic features of Khrennikov's music can be explained - getting back to one and the same plot and, respectively, music in different genre variants. The Five Pieces for Piano Opus 2 are among the earliest works of Khrennikov. They were written in 1932-1933, shortly after the appearance of his first piano concerto, in F major, and are dedicated to Anna Vargunina, his piano teacher from his childhood. Vargunina took over the education of the 11-year-old boy, who at that time lived in his hometown of Yelets and it was in those days that he made his first compositional experiments. The plays are named as follows: Vivace, Andante con moto, Moderato, Andante, Allegro. Their first performance took place on November 20^th , 1933 in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. They were performed by the author himself.