This cycle of quartets in all keys is written as a tribute to Dmitri Shostakovich who was the first in music history taking the initiative to write in all keys for twenty-four, systematically planned string quartets. Unfortunately he died long before full completion of his project, nevertheless leaving a legacy of 15 outstanding string quartets in 15 different keys. In this preface I would like to invite quartet musicians who are interested to get introduced to the background of my quartets as well as to the main elements of their setup and musical style.
In the beginning of 2018, after my 8th quartet, the second written in A minor, I realized that I had broken a chain of quartets written each time in a different key. I was used to this way of working in order to start in a fresh mindset every next time, however without the idea of a complete collection in all keys. Then I read about Shostakovich’ unfinished project. I decided to change my approach to realizing Shostakovich’ idea to full completion.
Since then, until the end of 2019, I focused on composing primarily the necessary remaining 15 string quartets, combined with a later revision of the 1st A minor quartet into B flat minor. This year I also decided to organize the twenty-four quartets in six volumes of four quartets, according to the order Shostakovich had in mind for his quartets (which is not the circle of fifths – something I will write about in another post).
My Saint Petersburg DNA
I found the basis of my musical inspiration in the same city were Shostakovich once studied and worked spending a crucial chapter of my life as a student in musicology, interested in 20th century melody, while melody was in a deep crisis in Western classical music. It was there, behind the Iron Curtain, in the eighties and long before the age of internet, that I discovered the rich, back then rather isolated wealth of Russian and Soviet music, a real Aladdin’s cave full of musical treasures. Both Russian and Soviet composers wrote wonderful compositions, from piano sonatas to symphonies and all had a tremendous impact on me. I can now say that it brought me closer to Russian contemporary music aesthetics as a combination of tradition and innovation. Russian or Soviet 20th century music convinced me of the vitality of sonata form and of the crucial role of melody as the soul (dusha) of a musical work.
When I took up the challenge to write a full collection of quartets in all keys, I did realize how big an ambition this was; writing in all 24 keys, having two years to carry out an idea that a great composer had not been able to finish over many years. After all, compared to bigger and more differentiated ensembles, writing a string quartet remains prestigious each and every time, as a master proof for composition skills and creativity with limited instrumental lines and a rather reduced coloristic potential. A great challenge for any composer in the past and present times.
It is maybe for this reason that ever since the days of its inventor Joseph Haydn, the list of string quartets per composer never has been huge. Haydn, as an exception, wrote 68 and, as far as I know, only has been outnumbered by another exception: the extremely prolific Boccherini, whose 91 string quartets seem, however, not as popular as Haydn’s. Most string quartet composers in the past two centuries only wrote a few or just one or two masterworks, like Ravel, Debussy, Prokofiev. And some great composers made attempts, like Rachmaninov.
Writing my quartets I did not realize all this and even less that completing the full cycle would virtually give me a top position in the list of string quartet composers, outnumbering even Mozart and by far all 20th century and all Russian composers, with whom I identify myself most. It may not be always clear to the listener (except for quartet 21 quoting Shostakovich’ famous D-S-C-H motive, his A minor violin concerto and also using the passacaglia form), but the spirit of Russian composers like Tchaikovsky, Taneyev, Myaskovsky and Shebalin is present in many of the 24 quartets, although my musical idiom is different from theirs. Russia proves to be a top country for its output of 116 string quartets in the list above; I would rather join them, raising the number of quartets ‘with a Russian soul’ (not necessarily folkloric) to 140, than being a Dutch stand-alone.
This text is part of a larger article written for the Polilog i Sintez Isskustv congress at the St. Petersburg conservatory.