Quatuor no 8 shostakovich biography

The String Quartet no. 8 in C minor, opus 110, the most loved of all Shostakovich's quartets, has a duration of about twenty minutes. Highly popular, it is performed more frequently than all of the other fourteen together.

The quartet has five linked movements, marked:

1. Largo, attacca
2. Allegro molto, attacca
3. Allegretto, attacca
4. Largo, attacca
5. Largo

Despite its popularity, the work evokes feelings of gloom and melancholy.

What is it about this quartet that, in spite of its austere and tragic music, explains its outstanding appeal?

Quatuor no 8 shostakovich biography

It is this question that we shall be examining in the paragraphs which follow.

Unlike most of Shostakovich's other quartets, the meaning of the Eighth, like its origins, was initially believed to be easily understood. It is the only substantial work that Shostakovich composed outside Russia.

It was written in 1960 whilst Shostakovich was visiting the former Communist State of East Germany. As a prominent Soviet artist he