The String Quartets

Abstract

It's no coincidence that Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 11 shares the key of Beethoven's 11th (Op. 95); Shostakovich's work is dedicated to the memory of Vasily Petrovich Shirinsky, second violinist of the Beethoven Quartet, which had premiered nearly all of Shostakovich's previous quartets. Yet the Beethoven connection becomes tenuous after that point. The angry earlier work falls into four fairly conventional movements, whereas Shostakovich has produced a suite of seven short movements, the first five no longer than a minute or two each. Yet Beethoven toys with harmonic conventions, and Shostakovich, too, challenges expectations—not harmonically so much as in terms of tone. The work's mood is predominantly elegiac, but, except in one movement, hardly tragic. Indeed, an element of quiet whimsy creeps into much of this peculiar score.

The Introduction: Andantino employs a wiry, restless theme with minimal accompaniment; when the instruments all take an equal part in the voicing, the melody falls flat and static, an amplification of the chords underlying the main tune. This leads straight into the Scherzo: Allegretto, with its nagging, repetitive theme (including a big, sardonic glissando near the end) that Shostakovich sometimes treats in simple canons. This slows and disintegrates, only for listeners to be jolted awake by the intrusion of the jagged, dissonant beginning of the Recitative: Adagio. This settles into long, ominous chords under fragments of the jagged figure, soon to be interrupted by the fourth movement, Etude: Allegro. A high, wasp-ish, perpetual-motion theme obsesses the first violin, while the other instruments play slightly menacing accompaniment; the theme is stripped down and simplified into a frantic ostinato that forms the basis of the ensuing Humoresque: Allegro.

The mood suddenly changes with the dark, grimly funereal Elegy: Adagio, a forlorn processional that makes much of concentrated two- and three-note motifs. After about four minutes—a lavish expanse, by this quartet's standards—the music segues into the Finale: Moderato. It begins with a very quiet, nattering, almost childlike tune that briefly turns into a barcarolle rhythm before reappearing as a sharp-edged pizzicato figure. Its slow, repeated-note patterns intertwine with a more sinuous melody drawn from material early in the quartet, ascending on the violin to a quiet, remote conclusion.