Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8, Op.110

Introduction

Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor (Op. 110) was written in three days (12–14 July 1960).

Composition and performances

The piece was written shortly after two traumatic events in the life of the composer: the first presentation of debilitating muscular weakness that would eventually be diagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and his reluctant joining of the Communist Party. According to the score, it is dedicated "to the victims of fascism and the war"; his son Maxim interprets this as a reference to the victims of all totalitarianism, while his daughter Galina says that he dedicated it to himself, and that the published dedication was imposed by the Russian authorities. Shostakovich's friend, Lev Lebedinsky, said that Shostakovich thought of the work as his epitaph and that he planned to commit suicide around this time. Peter J. Rabinowitz has also pointed to covert references to Richard Strauss's Metamorphosen in the Eighth Quartet.

The work was written in Dresden, where Shostakovich was to write music for the film Five Days, Five Nights, a joint project by Soviet and East German film-makers about the bombing of Dresden in World War II.

The quartet was premiered in 1960 in Leningrad by the Beethoven Quartet. The music critic Erik Smith wrote in the liner notes of the Borodin Quartet's 1962 recording that The Borodin Quartet played this work to the composer at his Moscow home, hoping for his criticisms. But Shostakovich, overwhelmed by this beautiful realisation of his most personal feelings, buried his head in his hands and wept. When they had finished playing, the four musicians quietly packed up their instruments and stole out of the room.

Music

The quartet, extremely compact and focused, is in five interconnected movements and lasts about twenty minutes:

I. Largo
II. Allegro Molto
III. Allegretto
IV. Largo
V. Largo

The first movement opens with the DSCH motif- Shostakovich's musical signature. This slow, extremely sad theme can also be heard in his Cello Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 10, Violin Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 15, and Piano Sonata No. 2. The motif is used in every movement of this quartet, and is the basis of the faster theme of the third movement.

The work is filled with quotations of other pieces by Shostakovich: the first movement quotes his Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 5; the second movement uses a Jewish theme first used by Shostakovich in his Piano Trio No. 2; the third movement quotes the Cello Concerto No. 1; and the fourth movement quotes the 19th century revolutionary song "Tormented by Grievous Bondage" (original title: Zamuchen tyazholoy nevolyey) and the aria "Seryozha, my love" from Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. The fifth contains a play upon a motif also from Lady Macbeth.

It has been transcribed by Rudolf Barshai for string orchestra, in which version it is known as Chamber Symphony in C minor, Op. 110a.

In literature

This quartet is heavily referenced in William T. Vollmann's novel Europe Central, and a central part of that novel discusses its writing and the composer's life under the Soviet system.

In film

The fourth movement of the quartet is used extensively in The Lobster, a 2015 film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.

In education

The first movement of the piece was a set work for Edexcel music A level between 2008 and 2016.

The whole string quartet was used as the A level set work for the WJEC exam board.