String Quartets 2
Shostakovich's Eighth Quartet is his most autobiographical piece of music. Composed in a matter of days and dedicated to "the victims of fascism," the piece not only quotes from highly personal works like the Second Piano Trio, the First Cello Concerto, and the operaLady Macbeth of Mtsensk, it also features the composers own musical monogram and a terrifying slow movement inspired by thoughts of the bombing of Dresden. It's so powerful and trenchant that it has also been successfully performed as a chamber symphony arranged for string orchestra. The Ninth Quartet has something of the same tension within a more conventionally balanced structure, while the First is all sweetness and light. You must hear this music.--David Hurwitz