Shostakovich Cycle: 3. Evening Concert

Conversations with his wives

This concert celebrates Shostakovich’s three wives. His second wife, Margarita, has had a bad press, but his 6th Quartet , composed just after their marriage is, almost unbelievably, full of good cheer and happiness. The 7th is a brief gem of a quartet, composed to celebrate what would have been the 50th birthday of Nina, his first wife and mother of his children. The Ninth Quartet, celebrating Irina his third wife has everything, quiet mystery, tongue-in-cheek rhythms, hymn-like moments of serenity, wild dances leaping from sublime to absurd, outbursts of extreme brutality, an operatic recitative, an explosive Finale with a magnificent, hard-driven cliff-edge finish. The Tenth was dedicated to his friend and fellow quartet composer, Moisei Weinberg, but the Passacaglia and the Armenian hurdy gurdy in the Finale were for Nina.