User:Clarissa Tamara/String Quartet No. 7 (Shostakovich)

Dmitri Shostakovich composed his String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108 in 1960. He dedicated it to the memory of his first wife Nina Vassilyevna Varzar, who died unexpectedly in December 1954. This piece was written in the same year of Nina's 50th birthday if she had not passed away. This quartet was premiered in Leningrad Glinka Concert Hall by the Beethoven Quartet on May 15th, 1960.

Shostakovich had written so many chamber music works, he had founded his characteristic approach to chamber music quite early in his career. Of his many chamber works, the String Quartet No. 7 is Shostakovich's shortest string quartet works with the duration of 13 minutes. The work has a four-movement structure. However the "fourth" movement is not considered as a separate movement, therefore the piece counts as a three-movement work. This quartet also has no break in between movements with the attacca in between all movements that Shostakovich notated.

History
Shostakovich finished his String Quartet No. 7 in March 1960. However, he chose to premiere this quartet in the month of May because May was very special to Shostakovich and Nina. There were a lot of memories that happened in May during their relationship. Starting from his new life together with Nina, their engagement, married, and also their first and second children were also born in May. Shostakovich purposefully wrote this quartet in F# minor because it is associated with pain, suffer, and more appropriate for the loss.

I. Allegretto
The first movement features a light theme with repeating motivic figures that can be described as a conversation of two opposite characters starts at the beginning of the movement. This movement also combines the dark and agitated emotion with humor and lightness of pizzicato. This movement has a lot of mood and character changed, from harsh, nervous, energetic, but also playful.

II. Lento
The second movement is more transparent with the lonely ostinato arpeggiation in the second violin throughout the movement. The texture of this second movement is quite thin with mute (con sordini) for all four instruments. The whispery ambience, sliding notes, sustained, legato and static notes creates the floating and dreamy atmosphere.

III. Allegro - Allegretto
The "Allegro" is a huge contrast from the previous movements. It starts with percussive stroke and accents at the beginning of the movement that elevates a whole different level of drama. Shostakovich inserted fugue in the thematic material throughout all four instruments. This movement is quite dense in texture especially with the fugue, chords and minimum of forte dynamic throughout the "Allegro".

The "Allegretto" is a contrast from the Allegro. It is more light, mellow and feels like waltz. Most melodic materials is played by the first violin while the other just accompaniment figures. The cyclic design of this piece appears in this movement. It is essentially making the final movement return to the where it started with thematic materials of the first movement at the end.

I. Allegretto
The first movement begins with a descending line by the first violin that emphasized they key of F# minor as the central of tonality in this movement. The thematic material then gets an answer from a cello with three eight-notes. The counterpoint in this movement can be described as a conversation of two opposite characters starts at the beginning of the movement. In the opening, there are two distinct character through the rhythmic pattern. The first violin has two sixteenth notes followed by an eight note while the cello answer it with straight three eight notes in the lower register. The melodic material in the first violin always starts on F# until m. 39, Shostakovich decided to starts the thematic material on Ab. The whole first section of the movement is metrically unstable, unpredictable, but also still playful.

The secondary theme (mm. 46), it introduces a new three eight-notes thematic material on cello. Instead of focusing on F# minor, Shostakovich shifted the attention to Eb minor. Later on, the first violin also has the thematic material in the higher register. In this second theme, the second violin and viola have steady sixteenth-notes throughout the entire section. The recapitulation begins in mm. 106 with the recomposition of the first theme through pizzicato and straight eight-notes. The recapitulation also brings back the F# minor tonality again. In addition, Shostakovich also put the second theme in the recapitulation as well with unstable harmony. The coda restores the metric instability in the exposition. The movement ends in the major with one last espressivo on cello.

II. Lento
The second movement begins with stand alone four measures of arpeggiation across four strings on the second violin. This accompanimental figure appears throughout the whole movement. This second movement brings the listeners to a new world and atmosphere. Shostakovich plays with timbre, color, and texture in this movement especially since all four instruments are muted. The first violin enters at measure 5 with soothing and calming from the high register. The viola and cello enter much later in m. 14 with a bold glissando and hold steady notes. In this movement, Shostakovich barely puts all four instruments play together at the same time since it has less dense in texture.

III. Allegro - Allegretto
The third movement marks a contrast with the second movement. It feels somewhat that the third movement interrupts with the fff material before the second movement even finishes. Shostakovich completely shifted the mood suddenly to a percussive and aggressive gesture. The softest dynamic in this movement is forte which is completely a contrast from the second movement that is dream-like atmosphere. In measure 12, the thematic material is being introduced by the viola. This theme also becomes the subject of a fugue throughout all four instruments. It creates a complex counterpoint and extremely dense texture. As the movement continue, the fugue keeps going with much more complex that become uncontrollable. This "Allegro" section ends with pizzicato on cello to calming down the chaotic atmosphere.

The "Allegretto" section is like a dance movement. It feels like a waltz even though Shostakovich did not write it. It is a contrast section from the "Allegro" section since this section is more calming and not as dense. The section starts with first violin with a new thematic material with the answer from three other instruments. Throughout the movement, the thematic material from the first movement comes back in between of the "Allegretto" theme. This movement ends with a nice F# major triad after calming down through cello's pizzicato near the end of the movement.