Dmitri Shostakovich - String Quartet No. 6, Op. 101 (1956)

1. Allegretto
2. Moderato con moto
3. Lento -
4. Lento - Allegretto

Fitzwilliam Quartet

Like No. 2, this quartet was written very quickly during a summer break, within three and a half weeks in August 1956, and like No. 4, it is relatively concise. It also makes a return to classical four-movement form, but with the scherzo – a waltz, as so often in Shostakovich – in second place. In another similarity with the Second Quartet, the first performance was given by the Beethoven Quartet, in Leningrad, when the score was still fresh, on October 7, 1956. For three years, Shostakovich had been concentrating on film music and songs; this was his first important première since the three that had come in the last months of 1953, those of his two preceding quartets and Tenth Symphony.