I am always on the look out for more music to listen to and on some days I stumble across pieces that make a real impact. Today was one of those days.

Shostakovich wrote 15 String Quartets and the Russian conductor Rudolf Borisovich Barshai arranged 5 of them (Numbers 1, 3, 4, 8 and 10) as Chamber or String Symphonies. It was these pieces that I listened to today.

He began transcribing them when the composer was still alive, eventually fleshing them out for larger forces. Shostakovich himself made approving noises about the Chamber Symphony Op 110a which is based on the Eighth String Quartet. 

The original versions of the Third and Fourth String Quartets, were written during the tumultuous 1940s – challenging times in the Soviet Union, politically as well as in Shostakovich’s life. To a certain extent both works mirror this. The Third Quartet was initially referred to as the ‘War Quartet’ in order to make it seem a more patriotic work in the eyes of the Soviet state, and String Quartet No. 4 was composed in 1949, but could not be premièred until after the death of Stalin in 1953 because of the references to Jewish music in the last movement. 

The Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a is, as I said, based on the Eighth String Quartet, a piece written shortly after Shostakovich reluctantly joined the Communist Party. According to the score, it is dedicated “to the victims of fascism and the war”. His son Maxim interprets this as a reference to the victims of all totalitarianism, while his daughter Galina says that he dedicated it to himself, and that the published dedication was imposed by the Russian authorities. Shostakovich’s friend, Lev Lebedinsky, said that Shostakovich thought of the work as his epitaph and that he planned to commit suicide around this time.

The quartet was premiered in 1960 in Leningrad and in the liner notes of the Borodin Quartet’s 1962 recording, music critic Erik Smith writes, “The Borodin Quartet played this work to the composer at his Moscow home, hoping for his criticisms. But Shostakovich, overwhelmed by this beautiful realisation of his most personal feelings, buried his head in his hands and wept. When they had finished playing, the four musicians quietly packed up their instruments and stole out of the room.”

I have gotten really hooked on these five transcriptions and will be listening to them often. 

Here is a YouTube clip of The Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a.