Shostakovich's String Quartets

Author(s): Niall O'Loughlin

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 115, No. 1579 (Sep., 1974), pp. 744-746
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/957844
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The first page of Liszt's
'Quand tu chantes' (reproduced
by permission of the National
Szechenyi Library, Budapest:
mus. 5. 108)

where they are sung by Fabiano Fabiani to a guitar

accompaniment behind the scenes. The text of the
Liszt song follows exactly the first verse of the poem
in the play, except for certain repetitions required
by the music and the insertion of 'Ah' in the penulti-
mate line. This is how the stanza runs:
Quand tu chantes, bercee
Le soir entre mes bras,
Entends-tu ma pensee
Qui te r6pond tout bas?
Ton doux chant me rappelle
Les plus beaux de mes jours . ..-
Chantez, ma belle,
Chantez toujours!
The number of Liszt songs to words by Hugo is
now increased to seven. Matilde's song is a typical
berceuse,3 admirably reflecting the sentiments of the
poem. The 9/8 time signature, the soft arpeggios of
the accompaniment, and the sensuous opening to of the opening bars. The markings at the beginning
the tune, all this suggests the characteristic atmos- of the keyboard introduction are 'Andantino' and
phere of a cradle song. There are strong similarities, 'dolce amoroso', and there is little emotional
in fact, to another Liszt song, a setting of Freili- disturbance in the 33 bars of the piece. Well before
grath, beginning 'O Lieb, so lang du lieben kannst.' the climax comes the instruction of bar 13 'sempre
Both have the same sort of guitarlike accompani- dolce tranquillo', and the quiet sentiment of the
ment and a family resemblance in the melodic shape song has resulted in a tiny, delicate pearl, brought
3The song was first performed by J6zsef R6ti and Emmi Varasdy forth in the same year as the grandiloquent Tasso
to illustrate a broadcast by the author on Hungarian Radio in
1973. and the ebullient Piano Concerto in E flat.

Shostakovich's string quai

Niall O'Loughlin

When Shostakovich withdrew his Symphony no.4,
and later presented his Fifth as 'a Soviet artist's
reply to just criticism', the cynical could ask how
just was the criticism, and whether Shostakovich
merely responded to ill-informed derogatory com-
ments by tightening up his formal plans and
economizing on his musical material. A by-product
of his soul-searching and technique-sharpening was
the String Quartet no.1, an apparently light-hearted
and isolated diversion. The fine set of worksl that
this led to could hardly have been predicted in 1938.
The string quartet medium gave Shostakovich an
opportunity to develop his skills in a much more
refined and undemonstrative way, in complete con-
trast to the 'public' display of the symphonies. He
was ready to extend classical forms in a natural
20th-century way, concentrating, almost to the point
of obsession, on overall unity, particularly by the
iString Quartets nos.1-13, Borodin Quartet, HMV SLS 879
(£7.50)
744
economical use of thematic material.2 Throughout
the series Shostakovich has repeatedly discovered
the art of understatement and developed an un-
forced musical consistency that he has rarely
attempted or achieved in the symphonies.
The small-scale and diverting no.1 in C was
unexceptionable, but it set the tone, with its subtle
melodic, rhythmic and formal transformations, the
passacaglia slow movement and the bold use of C
sharp minor in the scherzo. No.2 derived some for-
mal ideas from it, but moved into a different world:
the breadth of the themes, the dramatic recitative of
the second movement, and the ingeniously written
passacaglia-variations of the finale give the work a
far greater stature. The tonal polarity between A
and E flat (major and minor) gives a foretaste of
what is to come (especially in no.10). No.3, the
2see two earlier surveys: Colin Mason's 'Form in Shostako-
vich's Quartets' in MT Aug 1962, pp.531-3 and my 'Shostako-
vich and the String Quartet' in Tempo, no.87 (1968), 9-16

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longest of the quartets, also had some influence on
later works with its stamping sardonic scherzo
exactly scaled to the medium, a bold but unfamiliar
contrapuntal complexity (notably in the first
movement), and thematic connections between the
last two linked movements. The key scheme in these
movements is typically imaginative, moving from
C sharp minor through a nebulous D minor and A
before the final unambiguous but chromatically
inflected F major. These inflections find a greater
place in Shostakovich's no.4, particularly in the
rough rustic melodies of the finale, though the
static opening movement is not the composer's most
striking invention.
The next four quartets show Shostakovich
tightening his musical material, making his treat-
ment terse and economical in a manner worthy of
Haydn or Beethoven. A particular fondness for
four-note figures must have occupied his mind
during this period (1952-60) and appear not only in
his quartets. Shostakovich's most personal touch,
his musical motto DSCH (=D, Eb, C, B[) appears
in both the Fifth and Eighth Quartets. In the for-
mer, the plan is concentrated, and the thematic
connections between the linked movements are
noticeable but not exact-something particularly
emphasized by the use of the DSCH motto and its
loose but audible derivatives. In no.6, a much
lighter work, a neat little accompanying cello figure
that appears on the first page of the score underpins
the cadences at the end of each movement and
numerous free connections between the movements
can be heard. Nos.7 and 8, both dating from 1960,
virtually hinge on four-note figures, no.7 a des-
cending scale, and no.8 the DSCH figure in its
natural untransposed key of C minor. The two
works complement each other: the earlier quartet is
brief and understated, diverting and generally
transparent in texture, but note the breathtaking
and masterly fugato section of the finale-its surface
charm disguises some intricate thematic trans-
formations; no.8 has a grim obsessive intensity and
relatively little transformation or transposition of
the DSCH figure. All the resources of Shostakovich's
technique come into play, especially his contra-
puntal mastery and dramatic sense. Despite the
unambiguous tonal context, the composer's careful
moves toward some form of serial working can be
sensed.
Quartet no.8 must have had a cathartic effect on
Shostakovich, for thematic concentration is relaxed
in no.9. The lessons of the previous quartets (to
look no further) have been learnt and absorbed;
now there is a brevity and understatement which at
first seem to show a return to the undeveloped
miniature forms of no.1. The abbreviated sonata
form of the first movement is a case in point, but its
scale is just right. Typically the E flat/B minor
juxtaposition is simply stated rather than developed.
The beautifully written transitions between the five
linked movements are not superimposed on the
music, but form an integral part of it. Cross-
fertilization of ideas between the movements is
frequent and most successful. One example must
suffice: a chordal pizzicato passage in the fourth
movement (second violin, then viola) takes up part
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of the melodic line of the opening theme of the pre-
vious slow movement, then the first violin elaborates
it, with the help of the ubiquitous semitone, into the
scherzo-like material of the finale. The description is
laborious, but the music is magical. This finale
shows the composer's fondness for combining
apparently incompatible themes (see also no.5, first
movement), as well as making a complex summing-
up of all the disparate elements of the work, some-
thing which he also does to perfection in no.10 and
which is of such crucial importance to the under-
standing of no.12.
I know of no string quartet of this century that is
so poised and restrained yet as assured as no.10, with
its inevitability arising out of long experience. The
whole work thrives on an apparently effortless
ability to combine and juxtapose themes at will in
the most unexpected and subtle ways. The first
movement, though owing something to traditional
sonata form, is a wonderful amalgam of different
motifs that blend and flow into each other quite
naturally. The key contrasts (usually A flat and E
minor) are either harsh or subtle and ambiguous.
The passacaglia theme of the third movement has
some of the most ravishing counter-melodies that
Shostakovich has used in this favourite form of his.
The coda of the finale, in which various threads of
melody from all four movements are juxtaposed and
combined, sounds completely inevitable simply
because the composer has prepared the listener so
well.
The Tenth Quartet sounds fairly leisurely, but
no.11 is very concentrated, only some 16 minutes
long, and spreading over seven movements. Al-
though written as a memorial to Vassily Shirinsky,
a member of the Beethoven Quartet, much of the
work is divertimento-like. It is only the final two
movements, a haunting elegy and the slowish finale,
a pathetic slowing-down of the scherzo material
of the second movement, together with the ghostly
reappearance of the ever-present motto theme from
the beginning, that puts an elegiac stamp on the
work. The insistent rhythms of the dactyl and
anapaest permeate the rhythmic structure of the
work. The quartet plays continuously with carefully
composed links between the movements, as in no.9.
Shostakovich could almost have dispensed with his
movement headings, a procedure that he had been
moving toward for some time, and one that he
adopted partially in no.12 and completely in na.13.
WILL YOU BE USING MANUSCRIPTS
DURING THIE COMING SEASON?
Not if we have anything to do with it!
Send them to us and we will
prepare typewritten copies which are
scarcely distinguishable from printed music
CLEARER MUSIC MEANS BETTER
PERFORMANCE
Further details from:
Beaminster Music Services,
2 Tunnel Road, Beaminster, Dorset DT8 3BQ
745
 The plan of no.12 has been much discussed,3 and
from the first the work's importance was clearly
recognized. Shostakovich's apparent modelling of
the form on Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony
can help us understand the work, but the plan can be
readily experienced and appreciated by any sensitive
musician who discovers the quartets chronologically.
The composer's careful use of intervals such as the
4th, and the major and minor 2nd bears out his
concern for a full integration of the various ideas of
the work. The use of 12-note themes has a great deal
more significance than in the Third Quartet, but as
always with Shostakovich tonality is of fundamental
importance. Hugh Ottaway4 points to consolidation
rather than innovation in no.12. Indeed it is remark-
able how many ideas or processes used or suggested
earlier are now incorporated naturally into the
work's fabric: the combination of a halting waltz
with the slow-moving lines of the opening move-
ment (cf no.5, first movement); the gradual trans-
formation of the scherzo idea into a large number of
clearly audible guises (cf no.8); skilful use of short
motifs to weld the fabric of the music together
(cf nos.5, 7, 8, 9 and 11); the unforced and now
almost inevitable summing-up at the end of
the work of all or most of the previous material
(cf nos.3, 9 and 10); thematic linking of connected
movements (cf especially nos.8, 9 and 11). It is in
fact both a storehouse of most of Shostakovich's
hallmarks as well as one of the century's finest
quartets.
3The most thorough is Hans Keller's analysis, 'Shostakovich's
Twelfth Quartet', Tempo, no.94 (1970), 6-15, with its intro-
duction, 'Shostakovich discovers Schoenberg' in the Listener
(8 Oct 1970), 494. A valuable antidote is Norman Kay's
discussion in Shostakovich (London, 1971), 63-74.
4in sleeve notes to SLS 879
e t mflubical Cime4 ,
September 1874; 32pp., 2d
A great deal of virtuous indignation has been
publicly expressed respecting, as it appears to us,
the right of delivering an opinion upon pianists as
they severally appear before a London audience; and
we are told that we should admire both the con-
ception and execution of certain works by artists who
have made their fame, because their departure from
a preconceived ideal of perfection is a proof of their
"individuality." Now this appears to us a repetition
of the very injustice complained of; for although a
variety of readings of a composition may be freely
admitted, surely a particular reading may offend,
more especially when the effect is that the indi-
viduality of the performer is infinitely more promin-
ent than that of the composer. No person who has
heard Mendelssohn would deny that there was an
"individuality" in his playing; but the charm
exercised over his listeners by this very peculiarity
was due to the fact of his placing himself en rapport
with his author, and earnestly endeavouring to
expound his meaning, irrespective of any desire to
exhibit himself. We have no wish to disturb the
equanimity of those who can listen with pleasure to
wrong notes, eccentric alterations of tempo, and
passages tortured from the original to show the
dexterity of the player, but we claim the like
indulgence to ourselves if we cannot do so; and when
746
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Its successor, no.13, achieves a remarkable
integration. There are no separate movements;
tempos and ideas constantly overlap. The music
moves in a broad arch from a brooding Adagio to a
spectral and grisly march-scherzo and back again.
On first acquaintance the broad plan is easily dis-
cernible, but the myriad of subtle details is more
difficult to follow. A great deal of 12-note (not
serial) working is used, e.g. the opening viola solo
(clearly in B flat minor), from which many ideas are
derived. A number of other ideas are contrasted
and combined with it before the appearance,
Doppio movimento, of fragments which are to
crystallize into the march-scherzo. Perhaps the most
potent example of the composer's 12-note working
can be heard in the grinding dissonances of the
transition into the fast section. First, four minor
9ths are piled up harmonically, then eight, answered
each time by the falling 7th, A-Bb; the full 12 notes
appear in two statements (another is one note short)
of single notes scattered over the full range of the
instruments, each time coming closer together until
the Rossini-like rhythms of the scherzo section get
under way. An almost Freudian association of ideas
(rather than exact derivations) pervades both this
middle section with its ostinato suggestions of the
earlier passacaglias and the final gradual disin-
tegration into the opening music, transformed and
renewed in spirit. The work as a whole seems to sum
up what Shostakovich has been aiming for in the
whole series, a completely integrated single move-
ment work. What the latest quartet, no.14, planned
for this year's Aldeburgh Festival, but alas can-
celled, will bring, only time will tell. One cannot help
feeling that it will provide as much of a challenge as
its unusually rewarding predecessors.
we express dissatisfaction at the apparent victory of
the "wonderful" over the "beautiful," it is only
because we see that the progress of truth is tem-
porarily impeded. We have too much faith to doubt
the result, and therefore can afford to wait patiently,
convinced that if a "higher development" of piano-
forte playing should ever permanently obtain, it
will be by raising the artist to the level of the art,
and not by pulling down the art to the level of the
artist. After these few preliminary observations,
we may perhaps be credited with sincerity when we
say that Dr. Hans von Bulow, Madlle. Krebs,
Madame Essipoff, and M. Duvernoy should receive
a cordial welcome as artists of the highest rank.
Their various readings of the standard works
ought to command our earnest attention, because
they are all the result of profound study; but if the
impression produced upon the hearer by their
several styles is not to be honestly recorded, the
duty of the critic will sink to that of an artistic
courtnewsman, whose employment it will be merely
to chronicle the doings of those who rule for the
hour, accompanied by as much flattery as loyal
subjects usually demand from such an official.
-from 'The London Musical Season' by Henry C.
Lunn