Shostakovich wrote this set of of 24 prelude-fugue pairs for solo piano, one in each of the Major and Minor keys of the chromatic scale. The cycle was composed in the years 1950-51 while Shostakovich was in Moscow, and premiered by pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva in Leningrad in December 1952. It was published the same year. The complete work takes about two and a half hours to play.
- Volume 1: No. 1 - 12
- Volume 2: No 13 - 24
