String Quartet No. 15 (Shostakovich)
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The String Quartet No. 15 in E flat minor (opus 144) was Dmitri Shostakovich's last quartet. It was completed on 17 May 1974 and premiered in Leningrad by the Taneyev Quartet on 15 November, (one of only two Shostakovich quartets not premiered by the Beethoven Quartet). Like most of the composer's late works, it is an introspective meditation on mortality: it consists of six linked movements, all marked Adagio:
- Elegy (Adagio)
- Serenade (Adagio)
- Intermezzo (Adagio)
- Nocturne (Adagio)
- Funeral March (Adagio Molto)
- Epilogue (Adagio)
Shostakovich told the Beethoven Quartet to play the first movement "so that flies drop dead in mid-air, and the audience start leaving the hall from sheer boredom" (Wilson p. 470).
Further reading
- Wilson, Elizabeth (1994). Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691044651.