At the Leipzig Bach Piano Competition held in 1950 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Bach's death, Dmitri Shostakovich was the chief judge. The winning pianist was a 26-year-old Russian, Tatiana Nikolayeva. The two met and began what was to become a lifelong friendship. Hearing so much Bach so impressed Shostakovich that a year later he composed what became his Op. 87, the 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano, inspired by Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier which Nikolayeva had played so well in Leipzig. He dedicated the work to her, she premiered it in 1952, and the set became the work with which Nikolayeva was most closely associated. Forty years later in December 1992 she was filmed playing the work in the BBC studio. The set was then telecast piecemeal over a period of several days during that year's Christmas season. Only a year later Nikolayeva died at the age of sixty-nine.

The Preludes and Fugues are written in each of the twenty-four major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. Rather than being arranged in parallel major and minor pairs (C Major/C Minor; D Flat Major/C Sharp Minor, etc.) ascending the chromatic scale, Shostakovich's set is arranged in ascending major and relative minor pairs (C major/A minor; G Major/E minor, etc.). Each fugue is based on a musical fragment taken from its preceding prelude. The set takes about 2 1/2 hours