The mid-20th century was a period of global turmoil, marked by World War II, which upended the delicate balance between nations. Its end brought the direct conflict to a close, but the repercussions are still felt to this day. The horrors of war were reflected in music for decades to come, including pieces like Penderecki’s “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima” and Schoenberg’s “A Survivor from Warsaw.”
In the summer of 1960, composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote “String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110,” a profound piece of music that he dedicated “to the memory of the victims of fascism and war.” Shostakovich wrote his String Quartet No. 8 after visiting Dresden, a German city that was devastated by firebombing. However, the intense piece also captures an autobiographical element.
Shostakovich was born in Russia in 1906 and was subject to the Soviet Union for most of his life. He had a fraught relationship with the government, to say the least, as did many composers.
“Under Stalin, all Soviet composers were required to compose music of an essentially positive nature, designed to inspire feelings of patriotism for Mother Russia,” explains Classic FM. “It was acceptable to express the darker side of human existence only if by the end a great victory had been won and all foes vanquished. This became the emotional blueprint for countless Russian scores during this period. Unfortunately for Shostakovich, his propensity for seeing the ‘dark side’ in almost everything was soon to land him in hot water.”
The composer seemingly combined his emotions from visiting Dresden with his own mental state into the Eighth Quartet. The piece features five interconnected movements that are played without pause: Largo, Allegro molto, Allegretto, Largo, Largo. Named for their tempi, the piece emphasizes a slow, eulogistic tone on the bookended movements, with the inner movements having a brutal effect.
Shostakovich wrote himself into the music – literally. Aside from quoting his earlier works, like his First Symphony and Piano Trio No. 2, the five movements are tied together with his musical signature.
“Shostakovich’s full name in German, ‘Schostakowitsch,’ provides the key to the composer’s musical signature,” DSCH Journal explains. “In English musical notation, we have the letters A to G (in the treble clef, EGBDF on the lines and FACE in the spaces) and from these a limited number of words can be concocted. The German language is more accommodating, for here we have the two additional letters ‘H’ and ‘S’. The note B flat is written ‘B’ while B natural is ‘H’. E flat is called ‘Es’ and pronounced like the letter ‘S’.”
DSCH, then, translates in music to the notes D, Eb, C, B. The entire work begins on these four notes, and Shostakovich brings the motif back repeatedly through the music.
“The elegiac mood of the first movement is shattered by the following Allegro molto, a blitzkrieg out of which several versions of the DSCH theme, in varying note lengths, emerge,” Howard Posner wrote for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s program notes. “At a climactic mid-movement moment, the violins wail out a theme from Shostakovich’s Second Piano Trio, which was written in 1944.”
The quartet of Janine Jansen, Sarah McElravy, Julian Rachlin, and Mischa Maisky brings all of the violence and drama to the second movement in this jaw-dropping performance.
Whether Shostakovich meant for his Eighth Quartet to be a remembrance, an autobiography, or both is hard to say. He was quoted in a book called “Testimony” by Russian journalist Solomon Volkov as saying it was pure autobiography. Still, Posner points out that Volkov may have twisted his words to be what he thought Western readers wanted.
“While the Eighth Quartet is full of extramusical significance, exactly what it signifies is unclear. It could be an orthodox Soviet artist’s personal revulsion against fascism, or a disguised dissident protest against the Soviet state, or an outcry against totalitarianism of any kind,” he writes. “All these viewpoints, and a few others, have been advanced, and we are unlikely to know with certainty Shostakovich’s real message, or whether there even was a specific message.”
No matter the inspiration, it’s an enduring piece of music that expresses a piece of life.
Follow along with the sheet music for Shostakovich’s “String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110”:
