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Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73, was composed in 1946. It was premiered in Moscow by the Beethoven Quartet, to whom it is dedicated, in December 1946.
The quartet has five movements:
Playing time is approximately 33 minutes.
For the premiere, most likely so that he would not be accused of "formalism" or "elitism," Shostakovich renamed the movements in the manner of a war story: [ citation needed ]
A chamber symphony arrangement (Op. 73a) was made of this quartet by Rudolph Barshai. It calls for flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, harp, and strings. It adds winds for tonal colour in the style of Shostakovich's symphonies.
The first movement is constructed using sonata allegro form. The first theme appears in the first violin and is often heard interacting with the cello. The second theme is stated in the first violin and then imitated and transformed by the other three instruments. The development is rather long and pulls its material mainly from the first theme. Finally the coda arrives with an acceleration and crescendo , borrowing, once again, the main theme as its material.
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110, was written in three days.
The Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93, by Dmitri Shostakovich was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 17 December 1953. It is not clear when it was written. According to the composer, the symphony was composed between July and October 1953, but Tatiana Nikolayeva stated that it was completed in 1951. Sketches for some of the material date from 1946.
The Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major, Op. 70, was composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1945. It was premiered on 3 November 1945 in Leningrad by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky.
The Symphony No. 14 in G minor, Op. 135, by Dmitri Shostakovich was completed in the spring of 1969, and was premiered later that year. It is a work for soprano, bass and a small string orchestra with percussion, consisting of eleven linked settings of poems by four authors. Most of the poems deal with the theme of death, particularly that of unjust or early death. They were set in Russian, although two other versions of the work exist with the texts all back-translated from Russian either into their original languages or into German. The symphony is dedicated to Benjamin Britten.
The Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77, was originally composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1947–48. He was still working on the piece at the time of the Zhdanov Doctrine, and it could not be performed in the period following the composer's denunciation. In the time between the work's initial completion and the first performance, the composer, sometimes with the collaboration of its dedicatee, David Oistrakh, worked on several revisions. The concerto was finally premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 29 October 1955. It was well-received, Oistrakh remarking on the "depth of its artistic content" and describing the violin part as a "pithy 'Shakespearian' role."
The Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67, is a piece for violin, cello and piano by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, started in late 1943 and completed in August the following year. It was premiered on 14 November 1944. The piece was dedicated to his close friend Ivan Sollertinsky, whose death in February 1944 affected Shostakovich profoundly.
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 1 in C major, Op. 49, was composed in six weeks during the summer of 1938. It carries no dedication. Shostakovich said that in this quartet he had "visualized childhood scenes, somewhat naïve and bright moods associated with spring."
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 68, was composed in 1944 in just nineteen days in Ivanovo, 300 kilometres north-east of Moscow. It was premiered by the Beethoven Quartet and is dedicated to the composer Vissarion Shebalin. When Shostakovich began writing his Second String Quartet he had already completed eight of his fifteen symphonies. He was also half-way through his life. Another thirteen quartets remained to be composed, however, and they would come in rapid succession.
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 92, was composed in autumn 1952. It was premiered in Leningrad in November 1953 by the Beethoven Quartet, to whom it is dedicated.
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 in December 1954. This piece was composed in the year that would have marked her 50th birthday. This quartet was premiered in Leningrad Glinka Concert Hall by the Beethoven Quartet on May 15, 1960.
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 9 in E-flat major, Op. 117, was composed in 1964 and premiered by the Beethoven Quartet. The Ninth Quartet was dedicated to his third wife, Irina Antonovna Shostakovich, a young editor he married in 1962.
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 122 was finished on January 30, 1966, in Moscow. It was premiered by the Beethoven Quartet and is the first in a series of four quartets to be dedicated to members of the Quartet. Vasily Shirinsky was the dedicatee of the Eleventh, the quartet's second violinist, who died on August 16 of the previous year.
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 12 in D-flat major, Op. 133, was composed in 1968. It is dedicated to Dmitri Tsyganov, the first violinist of the Beethoven Quartet, which premiered the work in Moscow on June 14.
The String Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20, was written by the 16-year-old Felix Mendelssohn during the fall of 1825 and completed on October 15. Written for four violins, two violas, and two cellos, this work created a new chamber music genre. Conrad Wilson summarizes much of its reception ever since: "Its youthful verve, brilliance and perfection make it one of the miracles of nineteenth-century music." This was one of the first works of Mendelssohn to be very well-received.
Rudolf Borisovich Barshai was a Soviet and Russian conductor and violist.
The Octet for strings in C major, Op. 7, is an octet composition for string instruments by the Romanian composer George Enescu, completed in 1900. Together with the Octet in F major, Op. 17 (1849) by Niels Gade, it is regarded as amongst the most notable successors to Felix Mendelssohn's celebrated Octet, Op. 20.
The String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 22, No. 1, is a chamber music work by the Romanian violinist and composer George Enescu, composed between 1916 and 1920. A performance of it lasts about 45 minutes.
