After the tremendous compositional pace Shostakovich set himself in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he relaxed a bit in 1935. The only work he wrote in the first half of the year was his Fragments for Orchestra, Op. 42. Composed in a single day (sources disagree as to whether that day was April 26 [The New Shostakovich, Ian MacDonald, page 103] or June 9 [Shostakovich, A Life, Laurel Fay, page 93]), the Five Fragments are essentially a précis of Shostakovich's repertoire of compositional techniques at the age of 29.

The first movement, Moderato, is satirical, opposing the lowest register of the orchestra, the tuba, with the highest, the stopped trumpet and the squealing E flat clarinet. The second movement, Andante, is a highly ironic march for bombastic brass and tittering winds. The third and longest fragment, a Largo lasting three minutes for strings, is a frigid nocturne, predating and predicting the cold Largo of the Fifth Symphony of 1937.

The fourth movement, Moderato, is a very spare study in polytonality for bassoon, clarinet, and oboe. The fifth and final fragment, an Allegretto, is the apotheosis of Shostakovich's wanly sardonic Allegrettos: a snare drum's paradiddle ushers in a waltzing solo violin accompanied only by the snare drum, another violin (briefly), and, in the closing bars, menacing woodwinds.

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