The Fine Arts Quartet performs Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 3 in F major (1946). Recorded in 1989. Ralph Evans and Efim Boico, violins; Wolfgang Laufer, cello; Jerry Horner, viola.
Home
String Quartet No. 3 (Shostakovich)
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 3 in F major (Op. 73) was composed in 1946 after his Symphony No. 9 was censured by Soviet authorities. It was premiered in Moscow by the Beethoven Quartet, to whom it is dedicated, in December 1946. The work was furiously denounced due to the horrors the music portrays and because it ends on a very ambiguous, inconclusive, fashion. Some critics went as far as accusing Shostakovich of hiding coded subversive messages against Stalin within it.
Structure
For the premiere, most likely so that he would not be accused of "formalism" or "elitism," Shostakovich renamed the movements in the manner of a war story
1. Blithe ignorance of the future cataclysm / 2. Rumblings of unrest and anticipation / 3. Forces of war unleashed / 4. In memory of the dead / 5. The eternal question: Why? And for what?
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article String Quartet No. 3 (Shostakovich)
