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Shostakovich

Last Three String Quartets

Fitzwilliam String Quartet 50th Anniversary Recording

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Credits Tracklist Programme note Biography

Shostakovich

Last Three String Quartets

Fitzwilliam String Quartet 50th Anniversary Recording

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Recorded in St Martin’s Church, East Woodhay, UK, on 19–22 November 2018 & 14–16 February 2019 Recording Producer & Engineer Philip Hobbs

Post-production Julia Thomas

Cover Image Photograph of Dmitri Shostakovich

Design stoempstudio.com

Image on the left Shostakovich and Alan George, York Station Hotel, November 1972

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Dmitri Shostakovich Last Three String Quartets

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FITZWILLIAM STRING QUARTET LUCY RUSSELL violin MARCUS BARCHAM STEVENS violin ALAN GEORGE viola SALLY PENDLEBURY cello

48:13

37:48

CD 1

CD 2

S tring Quartet No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 138

String Quartet No. 15 in E flat minor, Op. 144

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Adagio – Doppio movimento –

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Elegy: Adagio – 12:49

Tempo primo 20:04

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Serenade: Adagio – 6:49

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Intermezzo: Adagio – 1:39

String Quartet No. 14 in F sharp major, Op. 142

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Nocturne: Adagio – 4:47

2 — Allegretto 9:23

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Funeral March: Adagio molto – 4:45

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Adagio – 9:33

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Epilogue: Adagio 6:56

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Allegretto – Adagio 9:00

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This recording is dedicated to Willie Russell, late Professor of Virology at the University of St Andrews, and father of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet’s leader. He had a strong empathy for the music of Shostakovich, and it was only ten days before his death, on 31 October 2018, that the quartet played No. 14 to him in his sitting room. Just over two weeks later, they sat down to record these works – very much in his memory.

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Dmitri Shostakovich

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The memory of a lifetime

An old man sits upright and motionless in a hotel room, peering into a musical score just a few inches from his face. Across the table four raw young musicians are playing for him the music that his long impaired eyesight can barely discern on the pages. But his ears, in contrast, are as sharp as ever: a wrong note there! … a misprint, fortunately, rather than any error in execution. Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich listens intently to his own Fourth String Quartet, then his Sixth, then his Seventh; the players are the Fitzwilliam String Quartet.

It would not be entirely accurate to describe this scene as a ‘coaching’ session; yet no amount of instruction could replace the intimacy and enlightenment experienced that day in November 1972.

Personal contact with a composer does not of itself guarantee definitive or ‘authentic’ performances; but there can be no doubt that the direct and vital communication with him over those two days created a 5

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deep and unforgettable impression on us. It inspired us to a mission, a burning commitment to the studying and performing of his quartets as faithfully and selflessly as we could. We were also embarking on something of a crusade, since most of these works were hardly known at all in Western Europe or America. Indeed, it was out of frustration with this situation that my initial approach to Shostakovich arose, early in 1972: knowing that a thirteenth quartet had been completed almost two years previously, yet was still unperformed in this country, we felt a duty to rectify the omission by playing it ourselves! It appeared that the likeliest means of obtaining the music – together with the obligatory permission to present it – lay in writing to the composer himself. His reply contained not only the requested material, but a promise to come to York for the concert! At the time I was somewhat perplexed as to why he should have been so enthusiastic about hearing such a relatively inexperienced group play his music; but as I came to know him better I realized that, distressingly conscious of his age and his precarious health, he must have felt reassured to know that this old-man’s-music could live and thrive in young hands.

When I received notification of the time of his arrival at York’s magnificent gothic railway station I knew at once that he had been unfailing in his promise to us – the first of a number of occasions on which he was equally faithful to his word. I am also certain that, despite his touching modesty, he was aware of how much it meant to us – or to any musician – to have the opportunity to play to him. I had been delegated by my colleagues to meet the composer at the station, and as I stood waiting excitement and apprehension in turn prevented me

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from realizing the composure with which I had hoped to greet him. Of course I recognized him instantly, but he cut a much more imposing figure than I had expected. In fact he appeared a squarely built, powerful looking man, yet physically very frail on account of his poor health.

His face was white and drawn, yet one was acutely conscious of those dark searching eyes behind a pair of very thick spectacles. His reputation for being excessively nervous was soon amply justified, especially when confronted with anything more than the smallest group of people; but as he got to know us better he became more relaxed and very talkative.

He must have known that actually playing to him for the first time would be a real ordeal for us, so he suggested that we run the piece through to him during the afternoon, in order that we might feel more at ease in the concert itself. At the end he seemed satisfied, and confined his remarks to amending a few of his own dynamic marks (particularly for pizzicato: ‘forte, please’!) in the text. We were all deeply touched by his efforts to make us comfortable, and his insistence that plans for the day should be arranged to suit our convenience rather than his.

I do not think that anyone who was fortunate enough to be present in the university’s Lyons Concert Hall that night can have forgotten the occasion very quickly – over the years all manner of people have come out of the woodwork, claiming ‘I was there’! The man’s very presence was electrifying, and one had the overwhelming sensation that one was in the company of something indescribably great.

Afterwards he was visibly overcome by the reception the audience gave him – something he must have been well used to, but to which he reacted as if it were the first time (we witnessed exactly the same at 7

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the Royal Festival Hall a few days later, after the British premiere of his Fifteenth Symphony). The following morning he requested that we come to his hotel to play some more of his music to him, and I particularly cherish the memory of those few hours: it was a priceless and life changing experience to be able to watch Shostakovich’s face while playing his own music to him, and to feel such a direct and vital communication with him.

As the shiny Pullman train finally drew out of the station his poor feeble hand continued waving until he was out of sight. In his subsequent letters to us he often recalled, with evident pleasure, his visit to York: surely for him it could have been no more than just a couple of days in an enormously rich life, but for the four of us it was the memory of a lifetime.

We did see him again a few days later, since he had asked us to come and hear his son Maxim conduct the Fifteenth Symphony in London (the original purpose of his visit to England), after which we spent a little more time with him: I was backstage immediately following the concert when I happened to pass him in a group of officials; I decided not to bother him at that point, but on seeing me he immediately broke away to embrace me and grasp my hand. I was astonished that he should have remembered and recognized us, and I felt completely overcome.

From that time almost to his death he kept up a regular correspondence with us, the last letter being dated 2 June 1975 (the photograph on the front of this album had been sent to us by the composer just a few months prior to that). Writing to us from the Palace Hotel, Copenhagen, on 10 May 1973, after receiving a tape of the Thirteenth 8

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Quartet he had requested from us, he mentioned that he had finished another quartet, and this we received early in March 1974. His covering letter began as follows: ‘Dear friends! Yesterday I sent you the score and parts of my Fourteenth Quartet. I shall be very glad if this work interests you and you include it in your repertoire …’ The Fifteenth Quartet followed at the end of December, together with Christmas and New Year greetings (characteristically thoughtful that he should remember our Christmastide – especially considering that no such festival was celebrated in the USSR). He seemed genuinely surprised that anyone should bother to play his music, and phrases such as the following were commonplace in his letters: ‘… it gives me pleasure to know that you give so much attention to my quartets’ or ‘thank you for the interest which you show in my works’.

In 1975 he invited his ‘English friends’ to spend a week with him at his dacha; six or seven quartets were mutually selected, on which we planned to work with him in some detail. Too late. News of his death, five weeks or so before our scheduled departure on 17 September, was devastating and so hard to accept or come to terms with, despite fearful awareness of his parlous physical condition. But even though the man is long dead his soul lives on, both in the music he created and in the hearts of those of us who knew him. During his last visit to England many people must have met him and will have related their treasured experiences of him, as I myself am doing at this moment. But he was just that type of person, that unique being, which transcends its own greatness with simple humility, human warmth, kindness and generosity.

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The following year we were invited to the USSR for a concert tour at the request of his widow, Irina Antonovna, whom we have subsequently met on a number of occasions; but not since October 1998, when she seemed thrilled at the opportunity to meet Lucy Russell – the quartet’s new leader. More recently (40 years to the day after she first met the quartet in York) she sent a wonderful volume of family photographs, with a touching dedication to us inside. © Alan George, 2019

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To the Fitzwilliam Quartet of the University of York Dear friends!

Thank you for your letter and news which gave me great pleasure. I send you my warmest thanks for mastering and performing my 14th quartet.

I often, and with great pleasure, recall the reception you gave me in York. I very much hope that I shall meet with you again many times, and enjoy and admire your art.

I send you my very best wishes.

D. Shostakovich 6 IX 1974 Moscow

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Shostakovich’s late quartets

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And so it is that Shostakovich the man, as he appeared to the members of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet nearly 47 years ago, is enshrined for all time in the music of his last three string quartets. That is not to say that these are autobiographical works, because in intention they are not really so: the feeling is altogether subtler, more spiritual even, than that. The experience of these quartets, whether through rehearsing, performing, or as a listener, really does recall being in the company of Shostakovich himself: the personality of the man and his music seem to be as one, and it is the very nature of this personality which makes the experience so profound and special, and so much in harmony with the essentially personal and intimate world of the string quartet. And it is those last three quartets, the very ones we were honoured to present to the West for the first time, that we offer here – as an appropriate way to celebrate the quartet’s golden anniversary!

Dividing a body of music, or a composer’s life, into ‘sets’ or ‘periods’ can be partly a matter of convenience, especially useful for today’s packaging and marketing methods. Composers themselves may not always be aware when they are undergoing change, but from our vantage point we are able to see a whole career in one glance and thus can easily detect stylistic shift. Beethoven made it easy for us by taking a lengthy sabbatical. No such fallow period occurred in Shostakovich’s

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working life; and neither did he adopt an entirely new system of composition, as did Stravinsky in old age. The dividing line is blurred and therefore arbitrary – to a certain extent. But listeners will surely be able to hear that the Twelfth Quartet sounds different from, say, the Fourth, and may want to understand why, or to find his/her bearings in this prolific output. And it should be emphasized that it is with the Twelfth Quartet – together with such works as the Second Cello Concerto, Op. 126, and the Violin Sonata, Op. 134 – that awareness of the above-mentioned dividing line first nudges us.

There are two special characteristics which most of Shostakovich’s late works share: the first, ironically, parallels Stravinsky in that twelvenote rows became a feature. The other relates more to Schubert, whose last years were dominated by an awareness and fear of approaching doom, hastened by irreversible physical disease. We might want to remind ourselves that the Seventh and Eighth Quartets had already grown out of Shostakovich’s first hand contact with death, and how this affected their musical language and content – at the same time remembering the Russian artistic temperament’s inclination towards morbidity: think of his idol Musorgsky, not to mention so much of the motherland’s literary heritage. But from the demise of the composer’s father in 1922 up to that time of life when advanced age inevitably takes its toll on one’s contemporaries, it refused to go away: not only did he suffer the loss of his wife Nina, but for a long period he had to endure the disappearance of many friends and colleagues. Yet he never really learned to come to terms with death. That first big heart attack in 1966 would surely have been the real blow: with his earlier medical record 13

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he must have dreaded what a further one might bring. And here lies the psychological root of these last compositions: death had coloured his music on many previous occasions, but the crucial difference now was that it was his own death he had to contemplate.

Like Beethoven, and Mahler, and Schubert, his final period of creativity was strongly coloured by musings on his own mortality. But whereas Beethoven seemed able to regard his considerable suffering as only a temporary handicap, such faith held no meaning for Shostakovich, who saw death as something absolutely final. The picture of anguish and terror which emanates from such works as Quartets Nos. 13 and 15 is harrowing indeed – and almost too explicit in the Fourteenth Symphony, which represented the most open manifestation of all these thoughts.

Significantly, the changing musical language of the composer’s final period is also seen at its most advanced in this particular symphony: during the sixties Shostakovich’s melodic style had gradually assumed more chromatic freedom, although still embedded in essentially tonal harmony. But at length he must have felt the need to break away from the security of tonality: the formal device of using ‘twelve notes related only to each other’ (Schoenberg) represented a decisive (and unexpected) step. However, it is important to understand from the outset that at no time does Shostakovich adopt Schoenberg’s serial technique; rather, his note-rows are manipulated precisely to suit specific formal and expressive requirements; and, as these requirements change from work to work, so the technique must necessarily be flexible as well. Another, perhaps more obvious, aspect of this developing 14

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language is the realization that his increasing privacy and withdrawal inwards is reflected in ever sparer textures – as we also observe with Mahler’s last symphonies: originating in that seminal Seventh Quartet, we find ourselves listening less and less to all four instruments together, more and more to just two or three, sometimes even one only – chillingly so as the Fifteenth progresses through its succession of Adagios.

It would be easy to draw parallels with Beethoven in discussing these ‘late’ quartets, and their common points of reference. But the fourteen years which separated his Op. 95 and Op. 127 quartets were far from being mirrored in Shostakovich’s catalogue, which from 1956 until his death averaged one quartet every two years; neither was there the same exclusive concentration on the medium towards the end of his life.

Yet, despite the stylistic, emotional and chronological bonds which unite all the outwardly diverse works of this period, it is the last four quartets which do seem to form their own peculiarly intimate relationship within the larger company: they belong very much to each other, presenting four entirely contrasting aspects of something common to them all.

String Quartet No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 138 (1970)

After the exultant conclusion of No. 12 there can be little doubt as to the emotional state of its successor, composed in the spring of 1970 while Shostakovich was undergoing treatment in Kurgan for a muscular illness. Many listeners have been truly frightened by this work, and even the most resilient temperament must have difficulty in escaping the overwhelming impression that this is one of the most 15

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disturbing things he ever wrote. Its arch-like form outwardly resembles Nos. 7 and 8; but it is the great second movement of No. 12 which is the real springboard, evolving in No. 13 with a unity so advanced that the work is compressed into a single movement, throughout which the pulse remains unchanged. The basic tempo is Adagio, with a central section moving at exactly double speed. The quartet was dedicated to Vadim Vasilievich Borisovsky, the original viola player of the Beethoven Quartet, and his instrument is understandably given an important part to play – right from the start, no less, where it presents a twelve-note row whose melodic intervals form the basis of so much of the subsequent material.

This row has inherited a quite definite tonal flavour – possibly under the influence of Alban Berg, whom Shostakovich deeply revered.

It is not uncommon to find passages in a Shostakovich score which seem to relate to earlier works; and so, when a ‘second subject’ is proposed by violin 2 it is not entirely unexpected, suggesting as it does a combination of motifs from Quartets Nos. 4 and 8. This soon provokes the first screaming outburst, which eventually subsides into familiar territory before a doubling of tempo is announced by the first violin, tapping out that most characteristic Shostakovich rhythm over a pedal E; the rhythm becomes more and more obsessive, the viola leading the protest, until it is eventually hammered out in excruciating chords of superimposed minor ninths which are then scattered into pizzicato Klangfarbenmelodie (a device associated with Webern, whereby a melodic line or note-row is split across more than one instrument).

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The next 140 bars are entirely dominated by a jazzy ostinato rhythm, highlighting a grey landscape where the intentional monotony recalls certain passages of Sibelius: perhaps Night Ride and Sunrise? There is certainly something of the night here, and some writers even like to call it a ‘dance of death’. The dynamic threshold always remains low; but after the texture has gathered threateningly with double-stopped melodies- creating what is, for this composer, a quite remarkable level of unresolved dissonance – the ostinati falter and all movement ceases. Out of this grows an uncomfortably eerie noise: three lines of semitone trills, over which the first violin returns with its original tapping rhythm, now in steely pizzicato (marked up from piano to forte by the composer in York).

The viola takes up the rhythm as before, completing the mirror effect of the arch form as the opening section of the piece is reached. All the original material is referred to, culminating in a heart-rending recapitulation of the ‘second subject’, out of which the viola emerges alone as all other sounds are silenced, climbing higher and higher as if to disappear.

This quartet was given its first Western performance (by the Fitzwilliam String Quartet) in Harrogate, on 11 November 1972, and repeated five days later in York, in the presence of the composer.

String Quartet No. 14 in F sharp major, Op. 142 (1972–3)

After the Thirteenth Quartet it would be all too easy to underestimate the Fourteenth. The aura of death and personal despair which hangs over Shostakovich’s last compositions seems to have created such

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a romantic image for these works that it has almost become a yardstick by which to judge each piece. One can find oneself trying to read too much into an individual work, over-influenced by what has gone before. But few people now underestimate Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, despite its incompleteness; and that experience leaves us in an emotional state strikingly similar to that created by this Fourteenth Quartet. Could we be witnessing the recognition of a painful longing for life which is slipping away; a passionate desire to be alive? One wonders whether – by 1910/11 – the stricken Mahler really still believed in the ‘Resurrection’ of his Second Symphony. It would appear that Shostakovich believed in no such thing, and the beauty and serenity at the end of his Fourteenth Quartet is no expectation of heaven. Here, more than anywhere else in Shostakovich, is that very special use of the major mode which expresses at the same time radiance, sadness, joy, pain, in the way that perhaps Schubert of all composers knew best, and put into practice most eloquently in the Adagio of his String Quintet in C major. Or again, Janáček, during the finale of ‘Intimate Letters’: the writer Joan Chissell found the Fourteenth Quartet ‘as joyful as anything in Janáček’s Indian summer’. Like all the major works of Shostakovich’s final years this quartet is unique: experiences may be shared, but are viewed through totally different eyes and feelings, and on a wide variety of canvasses. No other work of his can quite match this impassioned radiance; no other comes so close to Janáček.

Quartets Nos. 11 to 14 were dedicated in turn to each of the original members of the Beethoven Quartet, and the last to be so honoured was the cellist Sergei Petrovich Shirinsky (who, sadly, was not

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to live long enough to see the launching of the Fifteenth). Here the cello is given an even more prominent part to play than the viola in No. 13. As in the ‘Prussian’ quartets of Mozart (also written for a cellist), textural equilibrium is considerably affected by this unusual balance of power: the viola in particular achieves a special independence, often originating in its responsibility for holding a strongly supporting bass line. Shostakovich takes this individual prominence a stage further by allowing each player an unusual degree of freedom in recitative-like solo passages, and it goes without saying that here is a prime example of a composer depending a great deal upon the interpretative authority and instrumental command of the quartet members: ‘Over to you’, one might imagine him saying. But then, he always did attach great importance to the individuality of his four players as well as to their corporate role within the ensemble, and in these solos he seems privately to greet each musician in turn.

As the Fifteenth Symphony marked a return to a more conventional type after the song-cycle format of the Fourteenth, so the layout of this quartet likewise seems more traditional in comparison with the single movement bogen structure of its predecessor. Yet its design actually bears a close resemblance to the highly influential No. 12 in that, after a free standing first movement, the rest of the work unfolds in one self-contained span where the recapitulation of the second movement does not occur until after that of the third movement. A further overall unity originates in the repeated notes on the viola with which the work begins. These may seem no more than a conventional call to attention in preparation for the entry (on the cello) of the jolly first subject; but

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their reappearance under various disguises, at significant points along the work’s course, confirms their structural importance and helps to dispel any superficial impression of diffuseness. This first movement is particularly striking in a number of ways: its vast arch shape – within which are other smaller arches, all beautifully paced – gives every return to a point of commencement a feeling of rightness and security, as if nothing untoward had occurred in between. From its modest thematic beginning – almost Haydnesque in its joviality and carefree abandon – it expands into a piece of great strength and weight; paradoxically so, for none of the material is particularly weighty. Additionally, it encompasses a greater range of colour and sound than much of Shostakovich’s later music, and demonstrates a positive vitality – exhilaration, almost – which is rare in the other works of this period.

The Adagio has a nobility and life-giving passion which is far removed from the anguish of No. 13. The opening violin solo creates a sense of sadness by its slow tread, its minor mode and its tendency to descend in pitch-often by semitones. During this movement our hearts will be gripped by the most ardently vibrant passage in all these late works, and at the end by music of breathtaking beauty – surely one of the most poignant moments in all chamber music: the first violin drifts through chromatic lines as if mesmerized by a dream; all around is the stillness of unearthly harmonies, stirring only occasionally in response to the hushed tenderness above, yet never rising higher than a whisper for fear of disturbing the private vision.

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In each of the last four quartets Shostakovich has come up with one or two totally new ideas, all of which represent extensions to his musical vocabulary – the listener may well recall the Klangfarbenmelodie passage from No. 13, which can certainly be cited as a prime example. In fact, that could well be seen as the forerunner to a further exploitation of the technique here, where it is extended into a fierce ‘slanging match’ of over forty bars in which the players in effect hurl notes at each other! Thereafter textures thin out, time signatures constantly change, tonality becomes increasingly unsettled; the impression of indecision is further underlined as earlier themes are recalled, but without being able to establish themselves again. Eventually the home key, long striven for, is at last arrived at; and with the cello once more singing over all the other instruments the final part of the quartet is reached as the music of the Adagio returns, now all clothed in the most glowing F sharp major tonality – the key of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony.

Quartet No. 14 was given its Western premiere (again, by the Fitzwilliam String Quartet in Harrogate) on 16 August 1974, having been completed on 23 April the previous year – not long after his visit to York: maybe ideas were already germinating in his mind while he was there with us … ?

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String Quartet No. 15 in E flat minor, Op. 144 (1974)

Shostakovich’s last quartet was completed in the Autumn of 1974 at Repino – a special composers’ retreat on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, not far from Leningrad. Because of the death of Sergei Shirinsky (immediately following a rehearsal of this work) the premiere in Leningrad was taken over by the Taneyev Quartet (the Beethoven Quartet, with its new cellist, was later able to introduce the work to Moscow); as with its two predecessors, the first Western performance was given (this time in Manchester) by the Fitzwilliam String Quartet. The composer himself wrote of it: ‘I tried to make it a dramatic work; it is hard to say whether I succeeded.’ Such a remark must surely provoke a few raised eyebrows; but if one is not over-dogmatic in one’s interpretation of the word then this quartet is indeed a drama of tense psychological conflict, a conflict involved with the notion of existence passing into the infinity of oblivion. A brief preliminary perusal of the score will give a reasonable impression of the piece: for more than twenty pages nothing seems to happen at all; thereafter the staves occasionally blacken with a brief flurry of activity, quickly settling back into the simplest quartet texture imaginable – frequently reduced to a single lonely line of notes, meandering along, half hoping to reencounter lost companions. At the end one will have searched in vain for an Allegro, an Allegretto, or even an Andante, since all six movements are headed Adagio, and with the same metronome mark (except for the fifth: Adagio molto!).

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The Elegy opens with a diatonic fugato of unearthly beauty, ‘contrasted’ by a second subject melody initially supported by no more than a unison pedal C, sounding almost like a lone Scottish piper (the composer did visit that country – notably in September 1962, for the premiere of his previously suppressed Fourth Symphony). By the end of the exposition the time scale of the movement – indeed, of the whole quartet – is fairly well established: the intentional monotony is now driven home in a kind of pagan-religious chant, mesmeric in effect, characteristically Russian with a faint smell of the Orthodox, which might remind one of the Andante funebre in Tchaikovsky’s Third Quartet, or that oppressive scene in the chronicler monk Pimen’s cell in Boris Godunov. One can almost compare this Elegy to the vast, monolithic landscapes of Siberia which, even if one has never experienced them at first hand, somehow come clearly to mind with the help of pictures and descriptive accounts to stimulate imagination. In a sense such music does not really belong to this era at all.

Nowadays, and particularly in the West, we live our lives at so unhealthily hectic a pace that it is almost unnatural to have to accept and adjust to a slower time scale. Music like this Fifteenth Quartet of Shostakovich, or (more familiarly) the late Adagios of Beethoven and Bruckner, afford us the priceless opportunity of challenging the passing of time. One cannot stop time; one cannot even slow it or quicken it; but one can be less aware of it. Shostakovich helps us to do that here; just as, in the central section of the Thirteenth Quartet, he can, in a sinister way, do exactly the opposite by inexorably tapping out every beat of time. Fyodor Druzhinin reports that the

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audience starts leaving the hall from sheer boredom’! – a reminder of how self-effacing he could be, but also of how his mischievous sense of humour would come through even in such a context as this.

The extraordinarily hypnotic tension is eventually relieved by a succession of shrieks, as if that terrible ending of No. 13 is being relived over and over again, like a nightmare. The macabre Serenade thus heralded is a kind of slow waltz with a limp, which gropes along with little discernible sense of direction, eventually losing itself in a barely audible pedal note on the cello. All of a sudden the Intermezzo explodes onto the scene with a violent torrent of notes – although the cello remains quite unmoved, as if no longer conscious of what is happening above. It may seem perverse for some of these pieces to be labelled Adagio: the frantic activity of this Intermezzo and the opening of the Epilogue hardly sound like slow music, and the Nocturne flows along more like an Andante. Similarly the Serenade is not really an Adagio in character. But clearly there must be some kind of poetic or psychological idea behind the concept of attaching the same tempo heading to each movement, with – for the most part – the same pulse as well. The range and scope displayed by Joseph Haydn in the succession of slow movements which constitute his Seven Last Words is truly astonishing, and it is not unlikely that their influence may well have enabled a similarly extraordinary range here: Shostakovich’s ‘Six Last Words’, perhaps?

The listener’s nerves will now be soothed by the bitter-sweet Nocturne, its plaintive melody weaving its way sadly through gently undulating shadows. But its underlying restlessness in the end gives rise 24

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to an ominous sounding rhythm which the two violins softly tap out pizzicato. These muffled drumbeats prove to be a premonition of the Funeral March, which finally arrives on stage with emphatic unity. Curiously, the main part of this movement is entirely solo, each melodic strain being punctuated tutti, like a refrain, by the march rhythm.

The Epilogue seems to be no longer of this world; it is hardly a movement in its own right at all, more a painfully poignant recollection of previous experiences. It erupts with almost as much force as the Intermezzo, but thereafter manages only to look back on blurred memories of earlier areas of the work, amid a weird succession of rustlings, tappings, wailings and shudderings. Instrumental colour is exploited in a highly original way, imparting a truly eerie, almost supernatural, quality – likened by one prominent Latvian writer to ‘the howling of the wind in the cemetery’: assuredly, popular opinion in the former USSR believed that, with this work, Shostakovich was composing his own Requiem, as surely as Mozart was composing his in 1791. The semitone trill is an ever present spectre, as it is so often in these final compositions; and it would not be too far-fetched to speculate on its significance as a symbol of this stricken man’s death obsession, which continually haunted him during those last years. At the end it leads the way to the final chant, through it, and beyond it into nothingness. Shostakovich takes leave of the string quartet in a state of resignation and acceptance. © Alan George, 2019

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Performance note

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Preparing for his death, he scales ours, pares it to perfect fourths and fifths – familiar dimensions that ease the anonymity of heaven or hell – dissolves fugality to a discernible tremor.

(Dorothy Baumwoll ‘Thean Logan’, Lewisburg, USA, September 1978) It might be thought self-evident that the most ‘authentic’ performances of Shostakovich’s quartets are likely to come from his compatriots – particularly groups of his own era. Indeed, when we were originally asked to record these three works, back in 1975, our first response was to the effect that ‘who wants to buy Fitzwilliam recordings, when the Beethoven, Borodin, Taneyev are still available … ?!’.

So it quickly became a serious obligation to study the performances of those important ensembles, with the particular goal of capturing their special sound world – not so easy for musicians with no Slav blood in 26

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their veins! We were fortunate to be able to consult with the Beethovens’ leader, Dmitri Tsyganov, during our first visit to Moscow, and he was happy to divulge the secret of his distinctively vibrant sound: not just the pulsing vibrato (descended from Leopold Auer’s teaching), but also an economical, slowed down, intense bow stroke – and, in particular, how those two ingredients should work in tandem.

We then felt the need to build on what we had learned, through close perusal of Shostakovich’s actual scoring: notably the varied colours, textures, and huge dynamic range implied – right down to a barely audible pianissimo: remember that at heart he was a writer for the stage and for the symphony orchestra, so it simply won’t do just to sound like a conventional string quartet, with a nicely even tone! The late and much lamented Christopher Rowland, the Fitzwilliam String Quartet’s leader in those early days, used to say that one almost has to risk playing badly at times, in order to get the music’s true meaning across. We also took careful note of the composer’s particular method of notation, especially with regard to articulation, bow strokes, and note lengths: if he wants a note to be short he marks it so! Conversely, a singing legato has always been an integral part of Russian musical style, and one can often hear the deep sound of their extraordinary bass voices being imitated.

Tempo – as with so many of Shostakovich’s predecessors (not least Beethoven himself!) – must always be a matter for the most careful consideration. On the whole his metronome marks work beautifully – even if he did not always adhere to them himself! But on those 27

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occasions when they seem not quite right one has to adjust by falling back on a combination of handed down tradition (an essential ingredient of the Russian heritage) and an informed instinct. Most of the music presented here happens to sound perfectly well at his prescribed tempi – although, once the Beethoven Quartet finally released their recording of No. 15, we learned that its underlying mood and tread is that much more telling when pitched a few notches slower than crotchet = 80 (remembering the ‘flies’!).

In the end, the guiding light is no more or less than what is to be found on the pages of music themselves; except that his relatively sparse instructions leave the rest to the responsibility, integrity, and empathy of his performers. © Alan George, 2019

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© Peter Searle

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Fitzwilliam String Quartet

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LUCY RUSSELL violin MARCUS BARCHAM STEVENS violin ALAN GEORGE viola SALLY PENDLEBURY cello

The original members of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet (FSQ) first sat down together at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, in October 1968.

Their first concert appearance took place in Churchill College the following March, ahead of their public debut at the Sheffield Arts Festival in June – making the FSQ now one of the longest established string quartets in the world, and possibly unique in having reached a half-century with an original player still on board. After graduating from Cambridge in 1971, they accepted their first professional appointment as Quartet-in-Residence at the University of York, succeeding the celebrated Amadeus Quartet. There, the group built a niche for itself in concert venues around Yorkshire and the rest of the United Kingdom, at the same time joining a select company of quartets to have emerged under the guidance of Sidney Griller at the Royal Academy of Music.

International recognition came early for the FSQ as the first group to record and perform all fifteen Shostakovich string quartets, drawing on the players’ personal connection with the composer. The

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quartet has since appeared regularly across Britain, Europe, North America, the Middle and Far East and Southern Africa, and has made many award-winning recordings for Decca, Linn and Divine Art. The FSQ remain one of the few prominent quartets to play on older set-ups, yet simultaneously bringing about the addition of over 50 new works to the repertoire.

Whilst the FSQ’s pre-eminence in the interpretation of Shostakovich has persisted, the authority gained has also been put at the service of diverse other composers, from the early seventeenth century to the present day. Their involvement in 2013 with celebrating Britten’s centenary, and before that the chamber works of Delius and Grainger, are only the more recent manifestations of the players’ enthusiasm for using anniversaries to promote less familiar music.

Following Vaughan Williams in 2008, it would appear that Britain has gradually taken its place alongside Russia and Vienna as a principal area of speciality; while in 2015 they looked further north, to honour the joint 150th birthdays of Glazunov, Sibelius and Nielsen.

Having been Quartet-in-Residence at York for twelve years, at Warwick for three, and at Bucknell (Pennsylvania, USA) from 1978, their university work continues at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and now at St Andrews. They have also been granted their own chamber music festival in the famous ‘book town’ of Hay-on-Wye.

fitzwilliamquartet.com

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Also available on Linn

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CKR 296

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CKD 472

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