Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 11 in

F minor F minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature consists of four flats. Its relative major is A-flat major and its parallel major is F major. Its enharmonic equivalent, E-sharp mi ...

, Op. 122 was finished on January 30,

1966 Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...

, in Moscow. It was premiered by the

Beethoven Quartet The Beethoven Quartet (russian: Струнный квартет имени Бетховена, ''Strunnyĭ kvartet imeni Betkhovena'') was a string quartet founded between 1922 and 1923 by graduates of the Moscow Conservatory: violinists Dmitri T ...

and is the first in a series of four quartets to be dedicated to members of the Quartet. was the dedicatee of the Eleventh, the quartet's second violinist, who died on August 16 of the previous year."http://quartets.de/compositions/ssq11.html"

Structure

The piece has seven movements, all of them in continuous playing, without pause: The quartet begins with a violin which introduces the main theme; this will be developed throughout the quartet. It is immediately followed by the second movement, always with a dialogue in two voices and adorned with

glissandi In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a glide from one pitch to another (). It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In some contexts, it is distinguished from the co ...

; this movement's structure is similar to a

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...

. The second movement leads to the dissonant beginning of the third, with the whole quartet playing a series of fast notes and long, dissonant chords. The fourth movement and the fifth form a diptych in which fast melodies and repetitive motions are present. In the fourth, the first violin plays fast notes while the rest of the group plays long chords; in the fifth, the ostinato in the second violin simplifies the motion presented in the previous movement. The sixth movement is much longer and consists of long chords and short melodic lines. The last movement is a recapitulation of all the themes presented in the previous movements. Playing time is approximately 16 minutes.

Notes

#11 1966 compositions Compositions in F minor {{Chamber-composition-stub