Largo 
Allegro molto 
Allegretto 
Largo 
Largo 
 

The Eighth String Quartet is often considered to be a kind of musical autobiography, permeated throughout with Shostakovich’s musical monogram, D–S–C–H (D, E flat, C, B). In an interview with Elizabeth Wilson, the cellist Valentin Berlinsky (a founder member of the Borodin Quartet) said that it was ‘a landmark, the summing up of a whole period in the composer’s life. The quotations from the composer’s previous works give it the character of autobiography.’

The quartet was composed very quickly (from 12 to 14 July 1960) during a visit to Gohrish, near Dresden. The printed dedication is ‘In memory of the victims of fascism and war’. To his friend Isaak Glickman, Shostakovich wrote – in a letter dripping with irony – that it was ‘ideologically flawed and of no use to anybody’. But what followed was a remarkable and much more personal revelation: ‘When I die, it’s unlikely that someone will write a quartet dedicated to my memory, so I decided to write it myself. One could write on the title page: “Dedicated to the author of this quartet” … And the quartet makes use of themes from my own works.’ But for all the sardonic mood of this letter, the composer was in an extremely emotional state when he composed it. He told Glickman that ‘the pseudo-tragedy of the quartet is so great that, while composing it, my tears flowed abundantly.’

Just after his return from Dresden he played the work through to a friend in Moscow, admitting that it would be his ‘last work’ and even hinting that it was a kind of suicide note. He had just been coerced into joining the Soviet Communist party and was in a mood of utter despair. In other words, for Shostakovich, it seems that the real ‘victim’ he had in mind when composing this quartet was himself. Like the Third Quartet, the Eighth is in five movements, played without a break. These constitute a deeply moving and sometimes harrowing tapestry of violently shifting moods and musical self-quotations, all held together by the DSCH motif which seems to haunt the whole work. 

© Nigel Simeone