String Quartet No.12 in D flat major, Op.133

From No.2 in A major onwards, all of Shostakovich’s string quartets were destined for first performance by one of the leading Soviet ensembles of the time, the Beethoven Quartet. As it happened, the death of the cellist Sergei Shirinsky during rehearsals for No.15 in E flat minor meant that the first performance had to be entrusted to another favoured ensemble, the Taneyev Quartet of Leningrad. Even so, the constancy of the relationship between Shostakovich and the Beethovens - in spite of the composer’s admiration and affection for the Borodin Quartet - is something unique in musical history.

Of course, the personnel of the ensemble changed during the thirty years of the relationship. The viola player, Vadim Borisovsky, retired in 1964 and the second violinist, Vasily Shirinsky, died a year later. That is why the Quartet No.12 in D flat major, which was completed in 1968 and dedicated to the Beethoven Quartet’s leader Dmitri Tsyganov, begins with as many as thirty-five bars in which the second violin remains silent.

Another peculiarity of the D flat major Quartet is that it contains several twelve-note themes. It is not, however, a dodecaphonic composition. The twelve-note themes are just that: they are not note-rows as Schoenberg intended them and they are used neither to negate tonality nor to create harmony by numbers. “If a composer sets himself the aim of writing purely dodecaphonic music at all costs,” said Shostakovich, “then he is artificially limiting himself. But using elements of this system can be fully justified when dictated by the actual compositional concept.” Some commentators, and even some dedicated performers, are unconvinced by this argument and are worried by suspicions of “self-consciousness” and “contrivance.”

It could well be that the first movement, which is divided into two alternating sections each one characterised by its own tempo, its own twelve-note theme and its own expressive style - a brooding Moderato and a more playful Allegretto - seems disjointed. But that is part of the “actual compositional concept.”

The first movement is little more than a prelude to the second which, at more than twice its length, is obviously not intended to balance it. Indeed, in that it contains substantial elements of scherzo, Adagio and finale, the second movement is almost a quartet in itself. The scherzo section explodes into life with a series of fierce trills passed down from first violin to viola. Driven by a rhythmically impulsive five-note theme introduced by the cello in the first bar, it incorporates two heroic passages of sustained melody on violin or viola set against aggressive swirling figuration on the other instruments. The Adagio section is a funeral march with the first violin leading a twelve-note lament all the more painful for its incisive pizzicato articulation.

The crux of the “compositional concept” follows the funeral march: the Moderato section of the first movement is quietly recalled and everything seems to fall gently into place. Shostakovich, who thought this had worked out “splendidly,”celebrates the achievement with a long crescendo based on the scherzo material and a frenzied coda.

Gerald Larner©