Shostakovich

Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 9 in E-flat Major: A Poignant Musical Diary

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Musicologist Kai Christensen describes Dmitri Shostakovich’s fifteen string quartets as “a personal diary of poignant reactions, reflection, and dark visions.” Nowhere is this more apparent than in the middle quartets. Shostakovich dedicated his Seventh Quartet to the memory of his first wife, Nina, who died in December of 1954 at the age of 46. Outwardly, the iconic and emotionally raw Eighth String Quartet was “dedicated to victims of war and fascism.” Privately, …

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Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 2 in A Major: Klezmer Strains

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Dmitri Shostakovich composed his String Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 68 over the course of 19 days in September of 1944. He had just completed the haunting Second Piano Trio, and (a year earlier) the Eighth Symphony. While the Second World War still raged, the tide had turned, and a Soviet victory over the Nazis was all but assured. Shostakovich found refuge at a “house of rest and creativity,” a …

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Shostakovich’s “The Execution of Stepan Razin”: A Dramatic Cantata À La Russe

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In 1670, the Cossack leader, Stepan Razin, led an army of 7,000 oppressed peasants in an open rebellion in southern Russia against the Tsar’s government. The following year, after numerous bloody battles, he was captured, hoisted onto a scaffold in Moscow’s Red Square, and publicly executed by beheading. Razin’s gruesome demise is the subject of Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1964 cantata, The Execution of Stepan Razin, Op. 119. The dramatic work is scored for …

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Remembering Yuri Temirkanov

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Yuri Temirkanov, the renowned Russian conductor, passed away last Thursday, November 2, in St. Petersburg. He was 84. From the time of his appointment as artistic director in 1988, Temirkanov was credited with restoring the brilliance of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Between 2000 and 2006, he served as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Additional titles included principal guest conductor of …

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Shostakovich’s Impromptu for Viola and Piano: Paul Neubauer and Wu Han

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In 2017, a previously unknown work by Dmitri Shostakovich was discovered in Moscow’s Central Archives among the documents of Vadim Borisovsky (the longtime violist of the Beethoven Quartet). It was a brief, unassuming piece entitled, Impromptu for Viola and Piano, Op. 33. The autograph on the title page was dated, May 2, 1931, and was dedicated to “Alexander Mikhailovich…in memory of our meeting.” It is assumed that this was actually Alexander Ryvkin, the …

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Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto: Sardonic and Defiant

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In his later years, the cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich, recalled a conversation that he had with Nina Vasilyevna, the wife of Dmitri Shostakovich. Rostropovich wondered what he could do to encourage Shostakovich to write a concerto for the cello. “Slava,” she answered, “if you want Dmitri Dmitriyevich to write something for you, the only recipe I can give you is this—never ask him or talk to him about it.” Eventually, in July of …

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Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3 in F Major: Haunting Ambiguities

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Dmitri Shostakovich composed the String Quartet No. 3 in F Major in 1946 in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The previous year, his controversial Ninth Symphony shocked audiences and upset the Soviet authorities. It had not been the epic, monumental “victory” symphony everyone had been expecting. Instead, it was light, classical, seemingly frivolous music. Taken at face value, the Ninth Symphony delivered bright music filled with joie de vivre. …

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