String Quartet No. 6 (Shostakovich)

Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 6 in G major, Op. 101, was composed in the summer of 1956. It was premiered by the Beethoven Quartet{{Cite web |last=Harris |first=Stephen |date=2021 |title=quartet no. 6 |url=http://www.quartets.de/compositions/ssq06.html |access-date=May 27, 2024 |website=Shostakovich: the string quartets}} in October 1956. It carries no dedication.{{Cite book |last=Lesser |first=Wendy |title=Music for Silenced Voices |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-300-16933-1 |pages=122}} The Beethoven Quartet recorded it on the Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga label.

Structure

It consists of four movements:

{{ordered list|list_style_type=upper-roman

| Allegretto

| Moderato con moto

| Lento (attacca)

| Lento — Allegretto}}

Playing time is approximately 22 minutes.

The Allegretto first movement creates a carefree mood using nursery tunes.{{Citation needed |date= December 2021}} The second movement is a cheerful round dance in E{{music|flat}} major, the third movement a chaconne in B{{music|flat}} minor. The final movement leads into a complex Allegretto showing the influence of both Alban Berg's Lyric Suite and Richard Strauss's Metamorphosen.{{Citation needed |date= December 2021}}{{Explanation needed |date= December 2021}} The quartet also features the only vertical appearance of the DSCH motif (the notes D, E{{music|flat}}, C, and B{{music|natural}} played at the same time), at the final cadence at the end of each movement.

The quartet was written in Komarovo, Russia.

References

External links

{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eV7lD9Rw-Y |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211219/1eV7lD9Rw-Y |archive-date=2021-12-19 |url-status=live|last=Parloff|first=Michael|title=Lecture on Shostakovich Quartets Nos. 1, 5, 6, & 12|publisher=YouTube|date=25 March 2013}}{{cbignore}}

#06

Category:1956 compositions

Category:Compositions in G major