How Shostakovich Wrote His String Quartet No. 8, Part 2: Movement 2 (Composition Analysis)

The second part of my analysis of Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8!
Overview: 00:00
Rehearsal 11 - 14: 06:30
Rehearsal 14 - 18: 19:06
Rehearsal 18 - 21: 30:40
Rehearsal 21 - 22: 35:46
Rehearsal 22 - 27: 43:55
Rehearsal 27 - 29: 49:02
Rehearsal 29 - 33: 51:00
Rehearsal 33 - 35: 55:03
Outro: 56:57
Playlist for How Shostakovich Wrote His String Quartet No. 8: • How Shostakovich Wrote...
Piano Trio No. 2 Article (CW: genocide, WWII, the Holocaust): www.classical-music.com/featu...
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[@im2801ok]

I think it would be helpful to indicate that the melody played at the start of rehearsal # 21 is of overtly Jewish character (actually, when my mother heard it when I played a recording of this quartet back home many years ago, she immediately identified it as a disfigured version of a traditional Jewish song - "Am Yisroel Khay" (which is Hebrew for: "The People of Israel liveth"). As is widely accepted, the 4th movement of Shostakovich's piano trio op. 67, from which this melody is quoted, is a direct response to the liberation of the Majdanek concentration & extermination camp just outside Lublin in eastern Poland by the Red Army in 1944. It seems to depict the Jewish victims in that camp dancing beside their massed graves just before being shot into them. In that context, the juxtaposition of the message of the song with the actual fate of its subject is particularly horrendous. I understand it as an extreme expression of ire, pain, and ultimately - outraging protest against the atrocities that one man is able to commit against his fellow man, showing to what extent our civilization is capable of de-humanizing itself. Shostakovich was an un-flinching Judeophile, and the historical predicament of the Jewish People was central to his musical creation, so it is no wonder that he incorporated that melody into a work which was conceived by him, for a short while, as his musical letter of suicide.

[@nigelhaywood9753]

You’d probably say ‘sforzando moltissimo’ but I think by now it’s just become a musical indication that goes beyond it’s linguistic origins.

[@enriquesanchez2001]

FASCINATING stuff - THANK you, Jordan ♥♥♥♥

[@JordanMHollowayComposer]

Glad you enjoyed, thanks for watching Enrique!!

[@WillzUQ]

I'm glad to see how your channel is growing

[@JordanMHollowayComposer]

I so appreciate the support, thank you so much!!

[@michaelturley3909]

The detail you put in this is incredible! It really enhances listening to the quartet. Thank you for doing these.

[@JordanMHollowayComposer]

Thank you so much for watching, Michael!! I’m really glad you’ve been enjoying them!

[@belmarconductor]

Absolutely incredible video, please keep doing more 🙏🏻❤️

[@lindichen50]

Very appreciate for your work!

[@Dre-eq4bv]

Great lecture, Jordan!!

[@andreidogaru4296]

Great stuff, much appreciated!

[@josephinedavies7141]

Brilliant. Thank you. What a piece!

[@KDG702]

Fantastic analysis thank you so much for this great video!

[@JordanMHollowayComposer]

Thank you for watching!!

[@juankliss]

Greaat job thank youu

[@chrisoconnor9521]

The viola and cello are arpeggiating C minor chords, not rolling...

[@JordanMHollowayComposer]

E flat to C is absolutely a major 6th. And they are both arpeggiating and rolling, the bow is literally rolling across the four strings.

[@Harry-xz1uv]

as a cellist who is currently playing this quartet, I want to confirm that 23 is by far the worst part of the movement, and in my opinion, the hardest bit to play of the entire quartet as it is long, and requires shifting no matter how you do it. You can't even really string cross on the cello as that still includes this long held extension which within about 6 bars becomes unbelievably painful to play! Combined with the speed, it is just awful hah! (but it sounds so good so I can't even be mad at him)

[@mysticmouse7261]

What a genius raising ugliness to an art form.