String Quartet No. 5 (Shostakovich)
Encyclopedia
Dmitri Shostakovich's
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

 String Quartet No. 5 in B flat major (Op. 92) was composed in autumn 1952. It was premiered in Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 in November 1953 by the Beethoven Quartet
Beethoven Quartet
The Beethoven Quartet was founded between 1922 and 1923 by graduates of the Moscow Conservatory: violinists Dmitri Tsyganov and Vasily Shirinsky, violist Vadim Borisovsky and cellist Sergei Shirinsky...

, to whom it is dedicated. It consists of three movement
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

s, performed without a break:
  1. Allegro non troppo
    Tempo
    In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...

     -
  2. Andante - Andantino - Andante - Andantino - Andante -
  3. Moderato
    Tempo
    In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...

     - Allegretto - Andante
    Tempo
    In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...



Playing time is approximately 30 minutes.

The work grows from a five note motif: C, D, E flat, B and C sharp, which contains the composer's musical monogram - DSCH - (E flat being S and B being H in German). This monogram appears in a number of his other string quartets, including the Eighth
String Quartet No. 8 (Shostakovich)
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor was written in three days . It was premiered that year in Leningrad by the Beethoven Quartet....

, as well as his Tenth Symphony
Symphony No. 10 (Shostakovich)
The Symphony No. 10 in E minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 17 December 1953, following the death of Joseph Stalin in March that year...

.

Further reading

  • The String Quartet by Paul Griffiths (Great Britain: Thames and Hudson 1983)

External Links

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