stringquartet_no_8 unhinged shostakovich perfection and mastery of form and emotion string quartets 3, 7 & 8 hagen quartet desperation confinement hysteria noir loneliness 070106 ... unhinged i wish i would have never given it to him now it's ruined and i sat on my bed and blasted it as loud as my laptop speakers could stand and i weeped weeped for everything i gave to him that he never asked for still destroying myself one boy at a time after all these years 070116 ... god 8 is great 070116 ... unhinged hey_god : they sold the nyabinghi on ebay i missed you glad to see you especially at a time like this *sigh* 070117 ... god hey nic. so much has happened. i'm glad to see you too. 070119 ... unhinged shostakovich went to dresden in 1960 to compose music for a movie about the devastation of that city during wwii. instead, he wrote the 8th quartet. 'however much i tried to draft my obligation for the film, i just couldn't do it. instead i wrote an ideologically deficient quartet nobody needs. i reflected that if i die some day then it's hardly likely anyone will write a work dedicated to my memory. so i decided to write one myself. you could even write on the cover: 'dedicated to the memory of the composer of this quartet.'' 'describing the 'pseudo-tragicality' of the quartet, he measured the tears its composition had cost him as the volume of urine after a half dozen beers...although his claim has not been substantiated, lebedinsky contends that shostakovich meant the 8th quartet to be his final work; he planned to commit suicide after his return from dresden, a plan foiled when his stash of sleeping pills was removed surreptitiously. the composer did not mention it, but both glikman and lebedinsky naturally ascribe shostakovich's alarm about his impending admission into the communist party as the motivating force and key to the composition of the 8th quartet. 'the terrors of the bombardment that the inhabitants of dresden lived through, which we heard about in the words of the victims, suggested the theme for the composition of my 8th quartet. i found myself under the influence of the scenes being filmed, reproducing the way it used to be. i wrote the score of my new quartet in the space of a few days. i am dedicating it to the victims of war and fascism.' with the dedication slightly reformulated --- 'to the memory of the victims of fascism and war' --- this became established as the 'official' legend of the 8th quartet. the 8th quartet in c minor, op.110, was unveiled by the beethoven quartet at the opening chamber music concert of the new season in leningrad on 2 october 1960. the performance was repeated in moscow the next day for the musical community at the composers' union, and the first public performance in moscow took place on 9 october. under the extraordinary impact of the new work, heinrich neuhaus wrote to a colleague, 'it's music of absolute genius! i was shaken and cried.' the critics were no less affected. even though they were misdirected in their understanding of the sum and substance of the quartet, they were stunned by its tragic depth and raw passion even as a broader expression of protest and resistance, a true humanistic document of its era. that the 8th quartet was destined to become a classic of both soviet and western music was confidently predicted. that it was 'autobiographical' in its essence did not escape attention either, even if the pervasive use of shostakovich's personal motto and the numerous quotations from his earlier scores were believed to underscore his lifelong 'struggle against the dark forces of reaction.'' excerpted from 'shostakovich: a life' by laurel e. fay 070531 what's it to you? who go blather from