Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (25 September 1906 - 9 August 1975) was a Soviet composer and pianist, and a prominent figure of 20th-century music.
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String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73 (1946)
Dedicated to the Beethoven Quartet
1, Allegretto (0:00)
2. Moderato con moto (7:02)
3. Allegro non troppo (12:23)
4. Adagio (16:40)
5. Moderato (21:58)
Fitzwilliam String Quartet
Description by Michael Jameson [-]
The second string quartet by Shostakovich had marked a watershed in his developing mastery of the genre. He returned to the medium two years later, producing his next string quartet in 1946. As Robert Matthew-Walker points out, however, he had by now also "successfully tackled a formal challenge which had long fascinated Beethoven -- the joining-together of movements of different character, yet done in such a way as to make their continuation both seamless and inevitable...he had not thus far attempted it in quartet writing."
As Robert Matthew-Walker concludes, "It is sometimes claimed, not always convincingly, that there is often a hidden meaning in Shostakovich's work." In the case of his Third String Quartet, this notion may well have some foundation. The Borodin Quartet, who knew the composer well, insisted upon subtitles being appended to the movements for the premiere. Most likely so that he would not be accused of "formalism" or "elitism," the movements were renamed in the manner of a war story. These were never published, and in any case, these epithets closely mirror the music itself, and are worth restating here:
I: "Calm unawareness of the future cataclysm"
II: "Rumblings of unrest and anticipation"
III: "The forces of war unleashed"
IV: "Homage to the dead"
V: "The eternal question: Why? And for what?"