String Quartet No. 4

Dedication: “Dedicated to the memory of  Pyotr Vladimirovich Vilyams.”
Duration: 22 ’

String Quartet No. 4
in D Major
Op. 83

I. Allegretto
II. Andantino
III. Allegretto
IV. Allegretto

   On the first page of the Fourth String Quartet's autograph above the musical text, Shostakovich’s hand says: “Dedicated to the memory of Pyotr Vladimirovich Williams”. P.V. Williams (1902-1947) was also a talented painter, author of a number of remarkable portraits, a master of theatrical and decorative art, who worked as the chief painter of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR from the beginning of the 40s. Shostakovich liked the paintings of Williams. In his apartment hung two large paintings donated by the artist: “Nana” and “Bathers”. In 1944, Williams painted a famous portrait: Shostakovich at the piano in his cabinet, with a children's drawing on the wall depicting a naval battle. In 1945, a beautiful pencil sketch appeared: a portrait of the composer's nine-year-old daughter, Galina Shostakovich.
   In the Fourth Quartet, reality in the consciousness of an artist wise is sometimes painted in bitter, tragic tones, and in the enlightened conclusion of the finale one can hear no longer joyful rapture of life, but only calm reconciliation. The finale is based on a theme with a pronounced Jewish intonation flavor. “Turning to the Jewish melos, Shostakovich does not use genuine Jewish themes, but creates them completely original and in a huge range - from the grotesque to the heights of tragedy,” wrote V. P. Shirinsky in this regard. In accordance with the philosophical problems of his work, this nationally characteristic material is not used by Shostakovich to create an “exotic” colorite, it acquires a deep social sound.