Shostakovich: String Quartet No.4 in D major, Op.83 (1949)
Allegretto
Andantino
Allegretto –
Allegretto
The fourth quartet was written fully three years after No.3, so obviously it could not have been conceived out of the immediate aftermath of its mighty predecessor. Certainly it presents a totally different portrait of its composer: no tragedy or heroics, simply a work of exceptional beauty and lucidity in which Shostakovich allows his powers of melodic invention to flower in truly memorable fashion. Indeed, what is so striking – and almost revolutionary – about both this quartet and No.6 is the way they show their creator to be immune from the long prevalent conception of the String Quartet as an essentially serious and rigorously intellectual form. This would never have earned the approval of such earlier twentieth century composers of quartets as Schönberg and Bartók; but Shostakovich’s willingness to bring a greater range and freedom to the medium was far seeing and far reaching. However, there need be no fears that he compromised his standards of craftsmanship in any way: in No.4 he explores the art of climax to structurally telling effect, so that three of the movements (the exception is the third) owe their pleasing shape to the natural process of the building and releasing of tension. Although the first movement opens in lyrical serenity its climax is upon us in little over twenty bars, then to be sustained for at least as many again before an equally well worked descent. This whole passage is made especially memorable by the maintaining of a tonic pedal throughout its entire length, the open D strings of the viola and cello being brought into play with impressive resourcefulness. Additionally, the Jewish associations of this and other works from the late 1940s can immediately be felt through the preponderance of the interval of a fourth, which dominates almost all of this first movement – “I think…that Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me…. It is multi-faceted. It is almost always laughter through tears….”. None of these works – together with others composed after 1948 – were offered for public performance until after the death of Stalin in 1953: in January and February 1948 a series of conferences was held, led by Party Cultural supremo Andrei Zhdanov, which amounted to a purge on the leading Soviet composers of the day. Included among them were Prokofiev, Miaskovsky, Khatchaturian, and Shostakovich himself – a particularly sorry event which could only bring discredit to all responsible.
Climax of a more theatrical and impassioned nature is the focus of the Andantino, a quasi-sarabande in F minor – elegiac but faintly waltz-like – which provides the emotional heart of the work. After this the atmospheric scherzo brings a touch of genuine fun; instrumental colour is exploited subtly and imaginatively, always featuring the shadier hues made available by mutes (kept on from the end of the previous movement). There is also an underlying rhythmic activity which maintains the music’s direction, and in addition contributes a faintly Eastern flavour very much in keeping with the Jewishness of the outer movements. The viola eventually comes to rest on a long C harmonic, out of which is intoned a melody which a fanciful imagination might attribute to a gnarled old Oriental, seated cross-legged before a coil of rope! The climax period in this finale is the most extended of all, and is sustained by a density of orchestration whose effectiveness did not go unheeded in Shostakovich’s next quartet. Indeed, one cannot in the end escape the impression that this thoroughly warm hearted piece of music must be a work of considerable stature – an impression which has on some occasions been diminished when the metronome marks (over which the composer took such care) have not been properly absorbed. As can be heard in the Fitzwilliam’s performances and recording, they are particularly important here since they give a clue to the character of each movement, where the tempo designations themselves offer little distinction: for instance, the finale turns out to be a much slower, bigger, and more powerful piece than might have been anticipated, so that the shape of the quartet as a whole is firmly directed towards this heavy footed dance. Once the dreamy tranquility of the Andantino has eventually been re-captured, we can be left in little doubt as to the predominant mood of this music, when it speaks to us so simply and directly. The popularity of No.4 in Russia, where for many years it was one of the most frequently played of the Shostakovich quartets, is as understandable as its former neglect in the West was incomprehensible.
Quartet No.4 was one of the works the original FSQ played to the composer, during his historic visit to York in November 1972.
© Alan George
