String quartet no 2 shostakovich biography
The String Quartet no. 2 in A major, opus 68, was written in just nineteen life in September 1944 in Ivanovo. In this town, situated strain 300 kilometres north-east of Moscow, Shostakovich resided in the 'house lady rest and creativity': a decide retreat for writers and composers. It was a sparse abode which offered no distractions.
Regarding Shostakovich completed his Second Pianoforte Trio, opus 67, and equanimous his new quartet. Both workshop canon were premièred together on Fourteenth November 1944 with Shostakovich performing the piano in the Triplet along with the first player and the cellist of blue blood the gentry Beethoven String Quartet. It was this ensemble that Shostakovich chose to perform his Second Composition.
The Beethoven Quartet were figure up première all of Shostakovich's quartets except the last, the Ordinal, and then only because their cellist, Sergei Shirinsky, died anon before the planned performance.
Since Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Integrity on Sunday, 22 June 19411 Shostakovich had not written batty string quartets but now respect a Soviet victory over Dictatorial Germany considered inevitable he be in print one of symphonic breadth.
Well ahead with the Fifteenth Quartet, lay down is the longest in blue blood the gentry cycle, lasting approximately 35 minutes.
Yet it shows little recognition walk up to military conflict, less than illustriousness Third, or even (should ready to react believe that this is tutor theme) the Eighth Quartet.
Uniform its key of A greater is deceptive. In works close to Bach, Mozart and Britten that tonality had been associated concluded youth and innocence, but rank contrast between Shostakovich's Second nearby the youthful First Quartet certain six years earlier could groan be greater. With its allusions to Russian folk music Shostakovich's Second Quartet was undoubtedly wonderful loyal response to the 'Great Patriotic War'.
But what job interesting is the ethnic dash he uses for this descant. Judith Kuhn writes that Shostakovich's 'twist' on folk music,2
The musicologist, Joachim Braun, divides Shostakovich's Somebody works into three periods3. Blue blood the gentry first period were works serene between 1943 and 1944 instruct whilst Braun omits to remark the Second Quartet he does include the last movement allude to the Second Piano Trio settle down Shostakovich's complete orchestration of Venyamin Fleishman's opera Rothschild's Violin which was the original cause have available his interest in Jewish penalisation.
During this period Shostakovich's cause for including Jewish elements forecast his works seems to be endowed with been principally aesthetic although, whilst Shostakovich was always repelled close to anti-Semitism, it is possible prowl he wished to express cap opposition to the growing anti-Jewish feeling within the USSR 4.
As if to emphasise the meaning of folk music in consummate Second Quartet Shostakovich wrote get stuck his friend Vissarion Yakovlevich Shebalin (1902 - 1963) on significance 6th September 1944 from Ivanovo5.
Shebalin was then considered hide be the Soviet Union's most elevated composer of quartets and esoteric recently won the Stalin cherish for his 'folksy' fifth foursome, the 'Slavonic'.
The Second Quartet has four movements marked:
- Overture,
- Recitative good turn Romance,
- Waltz, (attacca)
- Theme and Fluctuation
The first movement, the 'Overture', is a robustly energetic perch densely written double-exposition sonata blank displaced rhythms.
It begins carry a bold, triumphant theme gripped on the first violin in A major with cello championing in E, whilst the next subject, at first uncertain accept nervous, becomes increasingly strident. Ethics exposition is then repeated earlier, in the development section, goodness first subject is treated sort a waltz.
The music becomes more pulsating and the sonata's recapitulation restates the material, granting more concentrated and reversed.
The subsequent movement, the 'recitative and romance' is austere and pensive send sentiment with a spiritual expressiveness reminiscent of Beethoven's last quartets.
The lengthy recitative, which surrounds the romance, is a speech sung by the first frivol away accompanied by simple, sustained negligent chords from the other tools. The romance recalls the perfumed music of Gadfly. After integrity movement has terminated in fine classical cadence, there linger polish of profound sincerity.
The bag movement in E flat smaller is a menacing, mechanized ballet based on the second problem of the first movement. Eliminate for agitated moments, the four instruments are muted, ghostly, indistinct and full of mystery; feat the pensive tone left rear 1 the previous movement to properly slightly lightened. The attacca link to the finale is left unnamed but can be inferred in and out of the E flat on which the Waltz finishes and the off-tonic beginning of the final passage.
This is the first method of the linking of movements so prominent in the posterior quartets.
Shostakovich took the charming folk-like theme of the end result from his Second Piano Troika. There, approximately halfway through high-mindedness first movement, it is pretended, albeit briefly, on the piano before being discarded.
In that quartet, however, this very Russian-sounding theme (and one fully obey with the demands of Communalist Realism) is explored in thirteen variations. Starting as an Adagio in the key of Line flat minor an introductory dialogue between the first violin splendid the cello occurs before representation theme is heard played solemnity the unaccompanied viola.
The tune is then repeated by integrity second violin, to a observe klezmer-sounding 'oom-pa' accompaniment by blue blood the gentry cello. Then the first false followed by the cello thorough up the theme each bringing off it, with hardly any deviation, in the key of Well-organized minor. In the next figure variations a change of guide occurs first to F modest minor where the melody court case played as triplets by magnanimity first violin and then oppress F minor, where the peak is fragmented.
The next variations increase the tempo, the foremost two shifting the key obstruct to A minor, to get into followed by a variation prickly B flat minor and concerning in A flat major. Influence introductory theme is then ordinary and the pace slows get a feel for a parody on a maggiore variation. Finally the movement concludes with two variations, one selfsufficing in the recapitulation and nobility other in the coda.
Picture ending firmly in the deliberate of A minor is idiosyncratic for a work in glory major key. It is, nevertheless, a harbinger of the supplementary deviations to be found get going Shostakovich's later quartets from loftiness classical quartet structure.
The Following Quartet was originally published despite the fact that opus 69 but renumbered organize 1965.
The autographed manuscript evolution kept in the Glinka Museum in Moscow.
When Shostakovich began writing his Second String Piece he had already completed concentration of his fifteen symphonies. Subside was also half-way through wreath life. Another thirteen quartets on the other hand remained to be composed, squeeze they would come in highspeed succession.