Piano Concerto no. 2 in F major, op. 102

Shostakovich wrote the Second Piano Concerto in 1957 as a nineteenth-birthday present for his son Maxim, who played it at his Moscow Conservatory graduation examination on 10 May that year. The scoring is light — strings, single woodwind, horns and timpani — and the outer movements tease the student's daily grind, the finale quoting the Hanon exercises a young pianist practises. The slow movement, in contrast, is a simple andante that has had a life of its own since Disney used it. The composer described the piece dismissively, denying it any artistic merit.