Shostakovich: String Quartets (Complete), Vol. 5 (1998)

Shostakovich's Last Quartets

A great deal of the music of Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) was composed under the specter of communism and the fear of political pressure. But in his chamber music and in his last works, Shostakovich reached an intensity and poignancy of personal expression that few composers can surpass. This is particularly true of Shostakovich's final two string quartets, composed in 1973 and 1974. Impending death, melancholy, and reflection were reflected in these two works. Shostakovich's two final quartets are included on this CD beautifully played by the Eder quartet as part of its recording of the complete cycle of Shostakovich's fifteen string quartets on Naxos.

Shostakovich's 14th and 15th quartets are both spare in texture and tightly constructed. They include intricate part-leading and long solo laments especially for the lower voices of the ensemble, the cello and viola. Themes are integrated and repeated across movements and, although the works are tonal in character, Shostakovich shows the influence of Schoenberg and his school in his use of twelve-tone themes. Most importantly, this is melancholy, death-haunted music leavened with passages of serenity.

I first heard the final string quartet no. 15 in E flat minor, in a performance by the Julliard String Quartet at the Library of Congress in 1975. This was surely one of the earliest American performances of the work, and the memory of that evening has remained with me. The quartet is highly unusual in form consisting of six slow movements. It is deeply pensive and the work of a composer who was facing death. The work opens with a lengthy movement titled "Elegy" which features each of the four voices entering in turn in music of sad, intense intimacy. There are long, poignant solo passages at the heart of each of the succeeding movements, particularly at their beginnings. The cello sings a 12 tone theme in the second movement, marked seranade, while the first violin has an anguished, angular running solo in the brief intermezzo. The centerpiece of the work is the Funeral March, the fifth movement, with its characteristic rhythmic structure and its melancholy deep-voiced solos. The final movement, marked "Epilogue" recapitulates much of the earlier music in the quartet, especially the funeral march, and brings the work to melancholy closure.

Shostakovich's 14th quartet in F sharp minor is of a more conventional three-movement structure with alternating fast and slow movements. This quartet too features lengthy spare solo lines and duets for the cello and the viola. The opening movement of this work has an angular, anguished character that is largely absent from the melancholy of the final quartet.

But in the middle of the slow movement of the 14th quartet, Shostakovich attains a moment of peace and serenity in the voice of the cello. The finale to the quartet I found ambiguous in character. It opens with the plaintive character of the opening movement but works gradually into a slow, peaceful close with recollections of the theme of the middle movement.

Shostakovich's final quartet has not faded for me since the time I heard the music when it was new, long ago. I found the 14th quartet more difficult to approach but also rewarding. This CD will appeal to listeners who want to explore some of the 20th century's finest efforts in the genre of the string quartet.

Robin Friedman