CCLXXXII. SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri (1906-1975)
We'll get to Shosty in a moment ...
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The three great figures of the Second Viennese School are, of course, Schoenberg, Webern and Berg.
Schoenberg wrote some wonderful music, using serial principles to create intense, sometimes programmatic (A Survivor from Warsaw) music.
Webern wrote pieces as short as 20 or 30 seconds, boiling down the 12-tone rows and retrogrades and inversions to the cellular level.
Berg wrote stormy, emotional works which occasionally used the row to create carefully-composed diatonic triads (see the Violin Concerto, Post VI) ...
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Like Bartók (see Posts V and CV), this one-movement quartet is in an "arch" form (ABA) [the two Bartók pieces referenced are ABCBA].
Shostakovich cannot by any measure be considered a composer of twelve-tone music. Even this quartet has a key signature -- but, aha! The first twelve notes form a row:
Like much of his late works, this one is dark and contemplating his end. He composed it while in an orthopedic clinic in Kurgan.
The violist (Vadim Borisovsky) of the Beethoven Quartet -- which premiered nearly every DS quartet -- had just retired and Shostakovich dedicated this quartet to him.
He continues to insert the row in various places:
The middle ("B") section starts innocently enough:
Before long we're in quadruple-forte territory:
and soon the violist is knocking his/her bow against the instrument!
and -- to bring this to a close -- in its highest register, the viola solos against the bow-tapping by the second violin:
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