Shostakovich - String Quartet No. 8 with score - Borodin String Quartet

Shostakovich’s “Dresden“ Quartet from 1960 scarcely needs an introduction. Its official dedication as a memorial to the victims of the 1945 Dresden fire bombing has long been supplanted by a focus on the obsessive use of Shostakovich’s own DSCH motif (D - Eb - C - B), plus its references to a convoy marching to Siberia from his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and the revolutionary song “Tortured by grievous unfreedom“, as well as other works. 0:04 -1st movement (Largo) 4:57 -2nd movement (Allegro Molto) 7:48 -3rd movement (Allegretto) 12:02 -4th movement (Largo) 17:25 -5th movement (Largo) This performance by the Borodin Quartet is from a studio recording made in Moscow, with the players Rostislav Dubinsky, Yaroslav Alexandrov, Dmitri Shebalin and Valentin Berlinsky.