String Quartets Opp. 49, 68, 73, 83, 92, 101, 108, 110, 117, 118, 122, 133, 138, 142 & 144

​Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich’s fifteen quartets do not span his entire creative career, so they cannot therefore be looked upon as a complete record of his development as a composer, unlike his fifteen symphonies;  the first of which was completed when he was nineteen. But considered together, the two series show a very clear, if slow, change of emphasis throughout his life. After the end of the war, he composed six symphonies and thirteen quartets, whereas up to that time he had produced nine symphonies and only two quartets, and this shift is further reflected by the fact that the earlier quartets tend to be symphonic in conception, with the late symphonies becoming more rarefied and personal. The fact that the composition of the First Quartet (1938) took place after that of the Fifth Symphony immediately demonstrates that Shostakovich, the young Socialist Revolutionary, never found representation in the medium of the string quartet. That symphony gave clear notice of a modification of style, so if we have no quartet from what was in many ways the most exciting (and certainly least-known) period of his life, at least we can content ourselves with the knowledge that all the quartets date from his real maturity, with experimentation in the past. Shostakovich lived in a period of history and in a society which has now vanished. His creative life was deeply influenced by the ideology and practice of Soviet communism and the polemics of the Cold War, two factors which not only determined the body politic but restricted intellectual freedom in Russia in all disciplines ranging from genetics to pure mathematics, from chess theory to classical music composition.
 
Shostakovich was the Soviet Union's most outstanding composer achieving almost iconic status in his lifetime. He was a patriotic Russian, a loyal communist and a willing part of the elite. Publicly he identified himself with the Soviet Union's political system but privately he refused to accept its cultural restrictions and at times he pushed artistic innovation to the limits of political acceptance. As a consequence some of his compositions were condemned as being incompatible with the official definition of acceptable music and at times his life in the Soviet Union became precarious.
 
Having established that there is no ‘early’ quartet by Shostakovich, it is both possible and desirable to divide the series into two groups, corresponding to the familiar ‘middle’ and ‘late’ periods of such composers as Beethoven and Mahler. The division is by no means an equal one, neither is it particularly clear-cut. But the last four quartets do seem to belong so inexorably to each other, presenting four entirely contrasting aspects of something common to them all, that they must be seen apart from the rest. Inevitably a group of eleven compositions will be more wide-ranging than a group of four, and so it is that, within the confines of a particularly individual and recognisable musical language, these first eleven quartets could hardly represent a more varied experience. Generally they tend to be outward-looking in spirit, and although they are certainly not without their moments of sadness and melancholy they are often robust and occasionally light-hearted. At the root of all this is an almost constant allegiance to Classical form and structure, allied to a never-failing grasp of what constitutes truly idiomatic quartet writing. It should be noted that, unlike Beethoven and Bartok, Shostakovich never sought to strain the medium beyond its already existing limits: indeed, he accepted it for what it was, gradually refining and sublimating it. In this respect he can hardly be considered to have expanded the technique of the string quartet, though whether or not he increased its expressive range is an entirely different matter. Furthermore his compositions contain, like many composers before him, encryptions achieved through numbers and the letters associated with notes. As a result Shostakovich's works give an impression of containing covert messages. Deciphering covert messages will certainly enhance our understanding, but it fails to explain our emotional delight. Shostakovich's most famous quartet, the Eighth, is easily dissected but its power is typically encountered long before any understanding of its origins. A close examination of the choice of key for each quartet shows that Shostakovich was following a plan; a plan that would illustrate his identification with the cycle by associating his initials with certain quartets. Throughout his works Shostakovich makes intensive use of musical quotations from songs, operettas and operas all of which have, of course, textual content. 
 
I shall only comment on his most famous string quartets here (viz., Nos. 2 – 4, 6, 8 and 13).
 
After completing his first quartet, Shostakovich did not write another quartet for six years, during which time many of the nations of Europe had been contriving to blow each other to pieces. Surprisingly, the Second Quartet (1944) reflects very little of this, in contrast to the two enormous symphonies (No.7—the ‘Leningrad’—and No.8) which he had composed during this period. Perhaps at this stage he had not yet achieved the flexibility in the medium which the Third Quartet (1946) so powerfully demonstrates, relating much more to the composer’s wartime experiences, almost like a delayed reaction. However, No. 2 still seems worlds removed from No. 1: it is over twice as long, considerably more wide-ranging, and generally made of a far tougher fibre. This is nowhere more apparent than in the first movement, the entire exposition of which is played forte or louder. In fact this is the only one of the first four quartets in which the first movement carries the sort of weight (in relation to the other movements) which was the custom with the Classical composers. The second movement contains the first example in the quartets of instrumental recitative, a device which Shostakovich employed frequently in all types of composition. The third and fourth movements are more Russian in character than one usually finds in Shostakovich’s music; the Valse is of a fast, restless type, dark and brooding in tone.  The finale begins with a short introduction, followed by a theme remarkably similar to that which was the subject of the variations in Quartet No.1. But here we have a movement on an altogether more ambitious scale; these variations are incredibly resourceful and very exciting too, as there is throughout a progressive quickening of tempo from one variation to the next, culminating in the return of the slow introduction before the final grand statement in A minor of the theme itself.
 
The Third, like the Second, is one of the longest of Shostakovich’s quartets. It was, in fact, the last of a group of works (including Symphonies 8 and 9 and the Piano Quintet) in which Shostakovich had used a basic layout of five movements.  However, the opening of the quartet is an  extremely terse double-fugue which forms its development section, the first movement would seem to give little indication of what is to follow. So, after the hilarious conclusion of this ‘prelude,’ the beginning of the next movement presents rather a shock; humour now wears a totally different face: innocent wit has turned sour, and we are confronted with a grim and sardonic waltz. This is the profoundly bitter composer of the war years and after, and the next two movements see his bitterness breaking, firstly into violence and aggression, then into sorrow and despair. As he has done so often in his most elegiac moments, Shostakovich casts this deeply moving Adagio in the form of a passacaglia, all the more eloquent for its pure simplicity. But the tension mounts, becomes almost desperate, and finally collapses as if exhausted; memories linger, and out of them the finale emerges—dark and questioning at first, but slowly growing in confidence. There is a tremendous climax, at which the ground theme from the passacaglia returns, now in canon; this is one of the few passages in Shostakovich’s chamber music where he seems to be straining for more sound than four stringed instruments are capable of. After this, the final pages see the music taking on a limp, muted, quality which is touching in its gentle pathos. The Third Quartet contains so many Shostakovich fingerprints that it must be considered one of the most characteristic of all his middle-period compositions—characteristic, too, in the directness and sincerity of its message, as summed up in a quotation from the composer himself: ‘Life is beautiful. All that is dark and ignominious will disappear. All that is beautiful will triumph.’
 
The Fourth Quartet was composed three years after No.3 (in 1949) and presents a totally different portrait of its composer; no tragedy, no heroics, no formal innovations; simply a work of exceptional beauty and lucidity presented in a formal framework of perfect proportions. Instrumental colour is exploited very subtly and imaginatively, and Shostakovich allows his powers of melodic invention to flower in truly memorable fashion. Yet at the end of this thoroughly warm-hearted piece of music, one has to admit that it is also a work of considerable stature—an impression which can easily be lost if the performers fail to observe the composer’s metronome marks, over which he took so much care. In this work, they are particularly important as they give a clue to the character of each movement where the tempo designations themselves offer little distinction; and so the finale turns out to be a much slower, bigger, and more powerful piece than might have been anticipated, so that the shape of the work as a whole is clearly directed towards this heavy-footed dance. Here too the Jewish flavour which had been suggested at the opening of the quartet now fully reveals itself as the viola leaves its long harmonic C to intone a melody of pronounced eastern character. But if the finale is the focal point of the quartet, then its heart lies in the Andantino—an elegiac romance in F minor whose dreamy tranquillity returns right at the end, leaving us in little doubt as to the predominant mood of a work which had opened in lyrical serenity and incorporated a touch of genuine fun and good humour into its atmospheric scherzo. The simplicity and directness of this music speak quite clearly enough and require little mundane commentary; yet it should not be forgotten that in 1949 Shostakovich was still burdened by Commissar Zhdanov’s now infamous critical attack on his music, so that whatever one might think of the personal element in the later quartets we have here a supreme example of creative objectivity, which is surely a mark of a great artist.
 
Quartet No.6 (1956) inhabits an altogether different world from its predecessor, although admittedly four years had elapsed since the composition of the latter — four years of crucial significance in Soviet history which saw (amongst other things) the end of one regime and the dawn of a new era. This quartet is fresh and untroubled, opening in childlike simplicity and pastoral gaiety; apart from a mini-crisis in the first movement and a sustained climax in the finale this deliciously genial mood is maintained throughout the work. And it was surely this spirit of good humour, rather than any superficial attempt at cleverness, which gave rise to the idea of concluding all four movements with the same distinctive cadence. The form of the quartet is cyclic in that rhythmic and melodic elements which appear at the opening are used throughout the work — particularly the three-note motif of the first main theme. The diatonic nature of this melody is predominant for the greater part of the first movement and also for much of the second, although the chromatic lines of the central section of the latter impart a dream-like remoteness which is reminiscent of the corresponding movement in Symphony No.9. The Lento is a gravely beautiful passacaglia in which the first three variations are polyphonic in texture, as opposed to the more static but no less eloquent ones which follow. This leads straight into the finale which, like the first movement, is in sonata form; both the principal subjects are based on the original three-note motif but there the similarity ends. At the climax of the development section the ground bass from the passacaglia can be heard in canon between the cello and viola; this impassioned music soon gives way to the pastoral intimacy of the beginning — or something near to it, as the mutes now add a strangely elusive quality.
 
The Eighth Quartet has probably been performed more often than all the rest put together (certainly in the West), and it does indeed provide an ideal introduction to Shostakovich’s music through the medium of the string quartet. It is not, however, truly representative of his quartets up to that time, and is in fact unique in its pronounced programmatic and autobiographical content. It was composed in three days during a visit to Dresden in 1960; that city and its history of devastation inevitably brought to mind the composer’s own terrible wartime experiences during the siege of his beloved ‘Leningrad. The work is inscribed to the ‘memory of the victims of war and Fascism ‘and Shostakovich portrays the inhuman brutality and destruction of war in the wild and relentless Allegro molto. Musical pictorialism is taken a stage further in the fourth movement, whose opening section reputedly intended to depict aircraft and gunfire. The drone of the former disappears a cryptic reference to the Dies irae, whereupon the three lower instruments solemnly intone the melody of an old Russian funeral anthem: ‘Tormented by the weight of bondage you glorify death with honour’ (this dates from about 1870, was a favourite of Lenin’s and so became adopted by the Revolution). The autobiographical element in the work originates in the use of self-quotations from earlier compositions, as if the composer were reliving times past; these appear at significant points along its course, and include references to Symphonies 1, 5 and 10, the First Cello Concerto, the Second Piano Trio (the section associated with the crime at Majdanek), and, most poignant of all, an aria from his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (later revised as Katerina Ismailova). In addition to these quotations virtually the entire work is based on a four-note motif derived from the German transliteration of the composer’s own name (D. SCHostakowitsch, i.e. DSCH, the German names for the notes D, E flat, C, B) — a kind of musical signature in the tradition of Bach, Schumann, and others. It first appears at the very opening, as the subject of a fugal lament (seemingly paying homage to Beethoven’s C sharp minor quartet, op.131); this leads to the main part of the movement: a quiet, contemplative elegy. The timelessness of this music is interrupted by the Allegro, which moves at tremendous pace; here the DSCH figure appears at differing speeds, sometimes endlessly repeated as a fast accompaniment to a slower melodic version. Next, the motif is transformed into a sardonic but humorous waltz melody, simply though effectively scored; in the fourth movement it appears only once, leading us out of the blitz onto an enormous pedal-point which supports the emotional climax of the work: the violins sing a serene duet, followed high on the cello by the Lady Macbeth extract. The final Largo is based on material from the first movement, which gradually becomes despairingly impassioned, only to fade away into numbed but dignified silence.
 
Quartet No.13 (1970) presents an aspect of life which the former work would seem to have banished forever; indeed, at the end one cannot escape the overwhelming impression that this is one of the most disturbing things Shostakovich ever wrote. Like Nos.7 and 8, it is constructed in arch-form, but the degree of unity is now so advanced that the work is compressed into a single extended movement in which the pulse remains unchanged throughout; the basic tempo is Adagio, with a central section which moves at exactly double speed. At the opening the solo viola presents a twelve-note row whose melodic intervals form the basis of almost all the subsequent material. A highly characteristic rhythm tapped out by the first violin over a pedal announces the doubling of tempo: the rhythm becomes more and more obsessive until it is eventually hammered out in chords of superimposed minor ninths, which are then scattered into pizzicato Klangfarbenmelodie. The next 140 bars are entirely dominated by a rhythmic ostinato figure which characterises a rather grey, monotonous landscape, recalling certain passages of Sibelius. The remorseless and inevitable tread of time is further emphasised by percussion effects produced by tapping the bow on the belly of the instrument. The extended three-part trills which follow provide what must be the most uncomfortable moment of all in a work whose darkness seems utterly impenetrable by even the faintest ray of hope. (Semitonal trills became another late obsession, as will be seen in the epilogue of the Fifteenth Quartet). After a heart-rending recapitulation of the opening themes the viola emerges once more to carry the music higher and higher, as if to disappear…
 
Here are four sets of albums:

​Shostakovich: The Complete String Quartets & Piano Quintet. Borodin Quartet. Release Date: 28 Sept 2018. Lebel: Decca. Catalogue No: 4834159. FLAC (CD Quality, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit).
 
Shostakovich: String Quartets. Emerson String Quartet. Release Date: 1 Mar 2000. Label: Deutsche Grammophon. Catalogue No: 4632842. FLAC (CD Quality, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit).
Awards:
Grammy Awards, 43rd Awards (2000), Best Chamber Music Recording.
Grammy Awards 43rd Awards (2000), Classical Album of the Year.
Gramophone Awards, 2000, Winner – Chamber.
 
Shostakovich: The Complete String Quartets. Quatuor Danel. Release Date: 5 Apr 2024. Label: Accentus Music. Catalogue No: ACC80585. Hi-Res FLAC (Lossless, 96 kHz, 24 bit).
Award:
International Classical Music Awards, 2025, Nominated – Chamber Music.
 
Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets, Volume 1 (As Yet Incomplete). Cuarteto Casals. Release Dates: 1 Nov 2024. Label: Harmonia Mundi. Catalogue Nos: HMM90273132. Hi-Res FLAC (Lossless, 96 kHz, 24 bit).

​References:
George, A. (1994). Shostakovich: The Quartets - Analysis & Commentary. The World of Mara Marietta. https://www.maramarietta.com/the-arts/music/classical/shostakovich/
 
Harris, S. (2021, January 23). Shostakovich: The String Quartets. Stephen Harris. http://www.quartets.de