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Alexander String Quartet and Robert Greenberg, January 11th
String Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Opus 122
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Born September 25, 1906, St. Petersburg
Died August 9, 1975, Moscow
In
the summer of 1965, violinist Vasily Petrovich Shirinsky died. For over forty
years Shirinsky had been a friend of Shostakovich and also the second violinist
of the Beethoven Quartet. That fall, Shostakovich set to work on a new string
quartet, his Eleventh, and dedicated it to Shirinsky's memory. The
quartet was completed in January 1966, and after several private performances,
the Beethoven Quartet (with a new second violinist) gave the official premiere
in Leningrad on May 28, 1966.
As is fitting in a memorial piece, the Eleventh Quartet
is somber music. It is also extremely original in structure, consisting of
seven connected movements that last a total of only sixteen minutes. The
Eleventh Quartet has been described as a suite of quartet movements
rather than an actual string quartet, but its thematic concentration, emotional
unity, and Shostakovich's economic development of just two fundamental ideas
across the span of seven sharply-contrasted movements place this work squarely
within quartet form.
The Eleventh Quartet has a beautiful beginning. The Introduction
opens with a lament for solo violin that soars and falls back, soars and
falls, constantly changing keys. Almost immediately the cello has a measured
figure in its lowest register-Shostakovich will build the entire quartet
out of variations on these two themes. The Introduction concludes with the opening violin melody high over fragments of the cello theme, but at the Scherzo
the cello theme is suddenly transformed into the subject of a quick-paced
fugue. The first violin introduces the fugue subject, and the other instruments
enter to the accompaniment of swooping glissandos and harmonics. The steady
pulse of eighth-notes continues throughout, finally dissolving into fragments
and resolving on the viola's low C.
The brief Recitative
opens with an explosion from the lower strings before the first violin enters
in double-stops; the shape of the scherzo theme returns very quietly here.
The Etude is a perpetual-motion movement, which-as its name suggests-sounds
like an exercise. First violin and later the cello have an unending rush
of sixteenth-notes here, and again the scherzo theme is implied very subtly
in the background. The Humoresque features a demonic second violin
that chirps out the interval of a minor third throughout, like a cuckoo gone
slightly mad; over that steady pulse, the other strings offer fierce fragments
of the scherzo theme. The Elegy returns to the mood of the very
beginning: over grieving lower strings, the two violins have an extended
variation of the opening melody. The Finale is muted throughout.
It opens with the fugue theme, but soon this gives way to music from the
beginning: solo violin sings its lamentation while far below the other voices
have bits of the fugue theme. These fragments gradually fall away, and finally
the Eleventh Quartet ends with the first violin all alone, its high
C shimmering into silence. It is a very effective conclusion to a very effective
piece of music.
String Quartet No. 12 in D-flat Major, Opus 133
The
official Soviet position on serial composition was completely negative: the
Soviets believed that Schoenberg's theory of composing with sequences of
twelve tones was the worst sort of "formalism"-music separated from natural
impulses and alien to the tastes of the public. But late in his career-at
a time when his standing as a composer was secure-Shostakovich became intrigued
by certain possibilities inherent in serial procedures, and twelve-note sequences
appeared in several works, principally the String Quartet No. 12 and the Violin Sonata,
both composed in 1968. Questioned about this during his final visit to the
United States in 1973, Shostakovich told an interviewer: "I did use some
element of dodecaphony in these works. Of course, if you take a theory and
use solely this theory, I have a very negative attitude toward this kind
of approach. But if a composer feels that he needs this or that technique,
he can take whatever is available and use it as he sees fit. It is his right
to do so. But if you take only one technique, whether it is aleatory or dodecaphonic,
and use nothing but that technique, then it is wrong."
This comment is the best possible introduction to his String Quartet No. 12,
for while twelve-tone rows appear in this quartet, the music's harmonic language
remains tonal-Shostakovich treats the twelve-note sequence not as a row but
as a theme to be developed in traditional ways. The quartet is in a specific
key-D-flat major-and however chromatic Shostakovich's development may become,
the music remains firmly anchored in that home key, as the triumphant conclusion
demonstrates. Shostakovich's encounter with twelve-tone music in this quartet
is more a flirtation than an embrace-it is as if he raises the issue just
to get beyond it.
The Twelfth Quartet
has an unusual structure: a brief opening movement is followed by a long
second movement that breaks down into smaller sections at different speeds
and in contrasted moods. Some observers have been quick to relate these sections
to the slow movement, scherzo, and so on of the traditional string quartet,
but such a reading straitjackets Shostakovich's quite original music into
other molds. Far better to take this music on its own terms than to attempt
to understand it in ways that may be alien to it.
Solo cello opens the Moderato
with the twelve-note sequence that will recur throughout the quartet, but
the first true theme-firmly tonal-follows immediately in the first violin.
That same instrument has the lilting second idea at the Allegretto,
another sequence of the twelve tones. Shostakovich's treatment of these ideas
can be full of chromatic tension, but the movement remains fundamentally
harmonic, and it comes to a quiet close.
The
long second movement opens with fierce trills in the upper instruments as
the cello spits out the five-note rhythmic cell that will run through this
movement. This opening section, which can be quite abrasive, gives way to
a long Adagio, introduced by solo cello-its somber song is answered
by a dark chant from the muted upper voices, harmonized triadically. Material
from the first movement begins to reappear here, and the Moderato
fuses some of these ideas as it builds to a huge climax punctuated by biting
chords. Finally the dancing first violin draws us into the concluding Allegretto
section, derived from the cello's five-note cell at the opening of this movement.
This section drives with great energy to its close, where the rhythm of that
cell rockets home in triumphant D-flat major. In the Twelfth Quartet,
Shostakovich may raise the issue of serial music, but only as a starting
point-the form and treatment of these ideas is anything but serial, and at
the end the quartet seems to thumb its nose defiantly at the whole issue
of atonality.
Shostakovich completed the Twelfth Quartet
on March 11, 1968, and the Beethoven String Quartet gave several private
performances that June. Shostakovich, who knew that this music represented
new directions for him, was quite pleased with these performances and with
his new creation. Shostakovich dedicated this music to the Beethoven Quartet's
first violinist, Dmitri Tsyganov, and that quartet gave the public premiere
Moscow on September 14, 1968.
Program Notes by Eric Bromberger © 2003
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