Shostakovich began composing the preludes in December 1932, shortly after finishing his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.

[2] He had stopped performing in 1930, after his failure to place at the 1927 First International Chopin Piano Competition.

[1] In the 1930s, violinist Dmitri Tsyganov [ru] transcribed 19 of the preludes for violin and piano.

[5] In 2000, composer and pianist Lera Auerbach made an arrangement of the remaining five preludes.

Pianist Gintaras Januševičius and actor Steven Markusfeld adapted the Preludes to the texts by poet Daniil Charms for their 2022 narrative programme "Damn Black Ice & Giant Cucumbers".