Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony

Above: Frauenkirche ruins with a figure of Martin Luther that survived the bombings

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a (String Quartet No. 8, 1960/arr. Barshai, 1974)

On the night of 13 February 1945, 773 Lancaster bombers from Great Britain’s Royal Air Force dropped 1,181.6 tons of incendiary bombs and 1,477.7 tons of high explosive bombs on the German city of Dresden. The bombers came in waves designed to cause maximum damage: explosives to create space for the fires caused by the incendiary bombs, and raids timed to coincide with the rescue teams’ attempts to put out the fires.

By the time the last bomb of the British-American attack fell on 15 February, 90 per cent of the city had been destroyed and between 22,700 and 25,000 people had been killed.

Fifteen years later, the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was in the city to write a film score – but he found himself unable to work on the project. The film’s director, Lev Arnshtam said: “he walked among the ruins of Dresden, shaken by the scenes of devastation.”

In a letter to a friend, Shostakovich said: “Everything there was very well set up for me to work. Conditions for composing were ideal… However, try as I might I was unable to compose the film music, even in rough. And instead I wrote a quartet that’s of no use to anybody and full of ideological flaws.”

The piece was his String Quartet No. 8 – which will be performed in an arrangement for chamber ensemble by Rudolf Barshai. The work is deeply personal: Shostakovich’s musical monogram – DSCH, taken from the letters of his name – appears in each of its five movements. The pattern of four notes, which can be found throughout Shostakovich’s output, is made up of the notes D, E-flat, C, B which in German notation are: D, Es, C, H.

The opening Largo sets the funereal tone of the piece before it is interrupted by the brutal opening of the second movement, which recalls some of the composer’s most tortured writing, such as his Eighth Symphony or Second Piano Trio. The third movement comes as something of a surprise: a waltz, albeit a grim perversion of the lively dance. In Shostakovich’s hands this waltz sounds like a dance of death. The fourth movement is another Largo, with references to the Dies Irae chant, Shostakovich’s own opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and a popular Russian dirge. Shostakovich closes in a quieter mood, with another Largo, disarming in its desolation.

When the famous Borodin Quartet played the piece for the composer at his Moscow home, they were hoping to hear his thoughts on their performance. Instead, the composer was “overwhelmed by this beautiful realisation of this 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.”

Programme note by Elizabeth Davis