DCCCXXIV. SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri (1906-1975)
String Quartet #15 in E-Flat Minor, Op. 144 (1974)
1. Elegy: Adagio
2. Serenade: Adagio
3. Intermezzo: Adagio
4. Nocturne: Adagio
5. Funeral March: Adagio molto
6. Epilogue: Adagio
Jerusalem Quartet
(34:13)
Shostakovich had 15 months of life left when he finished this quartet on May 17, 1974. Despite a hospitalisation for his heart condition, he was in good spirits. His 1930 opera, The Nose, was successfully revived for the first time in 44 years!
Recuperating in the countryside, DS was prolific, writing two mighty vocal works: Suite on the Texts of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Op. 145; and Four Verses of Captain Lebyadkin, Op. 146.
The Beethoven Quartet had premiered every quartet but the First (beaten to the punch by the Glazunov Quartet) ... this one would be no different. As the Beethovens rehearsed, their cellist -- Sergei Shirinsky -- did on October 18th.
Reluctantly, Beethoven asked the Taneyev Quartet to take over.
**
Certainly, Shostakovich was not thinking of death when he said to Dmitri Tsyganov (first violinist of the Beethoven) that he intended to write nine more quartets for a cycle of 24 in all the major and minor keys.
Nevertheless -- this quartet could be called gloomy -- but the artist's magnificent imagination brings this death-contemplating music to life.
1. Elegy: Adagio
"Play the first movement so that flies drop dead in mid-air and the audience leaves the hall out of sheer boredom." -- DS
E-Flat Minor (6 flats) is a very "dark" key -- think of a 92% cacao chocolate bar.
The subject enters in each instrument, fugal style. The order is second violin, first, cello and viola. E-Flat/B-Flat/E-Flat/F ... the viola's entry marks the composer's intention to thicken the harmonic texture here: This chord is vaguely a suspended first inversion of E-Flat:
... but now you would want to close your windows if they serenaded you with this dissonant music!
It is startlingly modern. He moves from tighter dissonances to consonance (bars 11-12) -- and to a bone-shattering ff pizzicato riff in the seconds and violas -- which leads to a weird cello solo, which sounds like an elephant stomping down a garden ...
Of course, Shostakovich can't help but recall the sunshine, as he here inserts a lovely little waltz -- but eventually everyone drops out but the first violin:
attacca
3. Intermezzo: Adagio
A short bridge to the next movement, with the first violinist playing a cadenza. After these ff chords, everything remains soft ...
4. Nocturne: Adagio
The first violin sits out. The second and cello play arpeggiated chords in contrary motion, while the viola has a beautiful solo:
5. Funeral March: Adagio molto
All previous movements were 1/4-note = 80. Now he takes it down even further to 60. The ensemble intones a snippet of what can't avoid being compared to the funeral march of the Eroica.
Interspersed with this material are flights of fancy in solo passages for first, viola, and cello.
6. Epilogue: Adagio
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