Shostakovich Brass
Today we'll take a look at the second movement of Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8.
This quartet has five movements in total: if you would like to hear the entire performance by the Emerson String Quartet, click here.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was a Russian pianist and composer who, throughout his career, had a complicated relationship with the Russian authorities who held a firm hand on what could and could not be produced artistically. From the early 1930's until nearly 1960, Shostakovich's works were written in a style that was more pleasing to the Russian government, but also contained his own distinct ideas which would come to be typical of his works, including the frequent repetition of musical ideas. Perhaps most noted is Shostakovich's use of the D-Eb-C-B note pattern
(D-Es-C-H in German nomenclature), known to be his biographical stamp on his pieces, as they represent the letters in his name, Dmitri Schostakovich (Russian spelling).
This quartet has five movements in total: if you would like to hear the entire performance by the Emerson String Quartet, click here.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was a Russian pianist and composer who, throughout his career, had a complicated relationship with the Russian authorities who held a firm hand on what could and could not be produced artistically. From the early 1930's until nearly 1960, Shostakovich's works were written in a style that was more pleasing to the Russian government, but also contained his own distinct ideas which would come to be typical of his works, including the frequent repetition of musical ideas. Perhaps most noted is Shostakovich's use of the D-Eb-C-B note pattern
(D-Es-C-H in German nomenclature), known to be his biographical stamp on his pieces, as they represent the letters in his name, Dmitri Schostakovich (Russian spelling).
Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 was written in 1960 and is the most popular of all the composer's string quartets. The piece was written while Shostakovich was in East Germany, writing music for a film about the bombing of Dresden in 1945. At the time of its initial publication, the work was dedicated "to the victims of fascism and the war," however some have claimed after Shostakovich's death in 1975 that the work is rather autobiographical for Shostakovich, and expressed the composer's anguish at a time when he was contemplating suicide.
Regardless of the composer's intent with this piece, there is no confusing its dark and somber mood. The second movement, here played by the Septura Brass Septet, induces a feeling of anxiety, perhaps even hopelessness, with its continued motion and dissonant harmonies.
Septura is a London-based brass septet comprised of the country's finest brass musicians who also hold positions in many of London's renowned orchestras. The group is currently the Ensemble in Residence at the Royal Academy of Music in London and is working on a 10-disc recording project for Naxos Records.
There are many thoughts that surround this piece, but is Shostakovich Better in Brass?
That's for you to decide.
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