Program Notes

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
String Quartet No. 11, Op. 122 (1966)

Notes for: August 14, 2012

Beethoven composed his five “middle” quartets and four “last” quartets for the same body of musicians – the Schuppanzigh String Quartet, named after its first violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh. The Schuppanzighs, moreover, advised Beethoven on technical matters relating to the use of string instruments, and the ensemble was the first professional string quartet, replacing an informal body of musicians who joined together on an ad hoc basis.

In like manner, Shostakovich collaborated closely with one professional string quartet, the Beethoven Quartet, which, with some changes in personnel, premiered thirteen of his fifteen string quartets. The group had been founded in 1923 by graduates of the Moscow Conservatory, adopting the name, the Beethoven Quartet, in the course of its 50-year history. Further, Shostakovich dedicated each of the quartets Nos. 11 through 14 to one of the group’s original members. Composed in January 1966, Quartet No. 11 was dedicated to the memory of Vasili Pyotrovich Shirinsky, the second violinist in the preceding ten string quartets, who had died the previous year.

The Beethoven Quartet gave the new work its premiere performance the following March at the Moscow Composers Club. The program also included a set of Shostakovich’s vocal works with the composer at the piano. The quartet was well received and was encored, but the event turned out to be the composer’s final concert appearance.

After the concert, he was escorted to his hotel by a throng of well-wishers, but there he began to feel unwell. An ambulance took him to a hospital where he was found to be having a heart attack – one of a series of illnesses that was to plague his final nine years. Confined to the hospital for two months followed by a month of recuperation in a sanitarium, he was unable to attend a series of concerts and other events in his honor, including the Moscow premiere of his thirteenth symphony.

Shostakovich’s eleventh quartet is backward looking, patterned in several ways after an eighteenth century divertimento. First, it is organized in seven short movements totaling about 16 minutes rather than the four movements of greater length characteristic of string quartets. Second, it gives the movements traditional titles common in the divertimento form as well as conventional tempo markings. Third, it gives prominence to the first violin.

However, the quartet’s dark moods and dissonant harmonization are completely modern, and this is music to tax the mind rather than to relax the body. Further, the movements are played without pause, making in effect an intensive single-movement structure.

  1. Introduction: Andantino: The unaccompanied first violin introduces the main theme, elements of which are to be developed in separate phrases throughout the quartet. The key is indeterminate at first, finally settling into F minor. Note the introduction in the lower strings of a rhythmic pattern phrase in which one pitch is repeated several times. This idea is repeated in various forms in subsequent movements.

  2. Scherzo: Allegretto: The first violin opens again, this time with a more sinister phrase which becomes a dialog, seasoned intermittently with accented eighth notes and upward glissandos. An ominous low C for the viola extending for eight measures leads to:

  3. Recitative: adagio: A short dramatic movement with what one analyst calls “three heart seizures”, each consisting of a passage of 32nd notes followed by repeated dissonant fortissimo jolts over long dissonant chords.

  4. Étude: Allegro: The first violin plays sequences over 16th notes while the rest of the group plays menacing chords. The first violin then changes places with the cello.

  5. Humoresque: Allegro: The second violin opens by repeating two notes, G and E, and this continues for the entire movement. Over it the first violin a offers a melody, based in simplified motion on the previous movement.

  6. Elegy: Adagio. This is the heart of work, calm and profound, with long chords and short melodic lines. At the end, the first violin and then the second violin lead unaccompanied to:

  7. Finale: Moderato - meno mosso - moderato. This is a recapitulation of the themes and ideas of the melodic material from the previous movements. The music varies between F major and F minor, but focuses on the minor as it progresses. At the end, the first violin holds the highest possible C seemingly forever, but really for 18 measures.

Copyright © 2012 by Willard J. Hertz