String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108

Among the shortest of his 15 quartets, Shostakovich composed his String Quartet No. 7, Op. 108, as a belated memorial for his first wife, Nina, who died in 1954. The quartet is in F-sharp minor, a key often associated with pain and loss. (In the Piano Concerto No. 23, K.488, Mozart sets the despairing Adagio in that very tonality—the only time he did so in his entire compositional output.) The emotionally fraught, intense work is performed attacca, with no pause between movements. In the opening Allegretto, an anxious-sounding theme morphs into Shostakovich’s signature three-note figure, often compared to “fate knocking at the door.” The ensuing slow movement is spare and lonely, filled with a quiet anguish. Frenetic energy takes over in the concluding Allegro, with a fugue eventually leading to a waltz in F-sharp minor. While the quartet ends in the major mode, the eerie quality generates more questions than answers. Is this resignation, or quiet insanity?