Jerusalem Quartet: Schostakowitsch IV

In the fourth concert of the Jerusalem Quartet's Shostakovich series, Quartet No. 13 occupies a key position: desolate hopelessness has rarely been captured in music like this.

The fourth part of the cycle with the Jerusalem Quartet begins with String Quartet No. 3, in which Shostakovich offers one of his typical dance persiflage. In it, he seems to ridicule all the constraints of his life under the Soviet regime. The thirteenth quartet turns inwards as a one-movement meditation and reveals a desperate landscape of the soul. Dedicated to a violist friend, it ends with one of the most difficult viola solos in the highest register, the last note of which swells from deepest resignation to a final cry. The penultimate quartet, No. 14, concludes with its austere tonal language.