Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor (II) 

Had?

@@okaybutwhythough7456 He was a drinking buddy, I stopped drinking in 1990, he didn't. We drifted apart.

@@disrxt Oh. That makes sense.

Frank Kelley well that's a great thing to do when your friend doesn't stop his addiction, I appreciate you.

@@okaybutwhythough7456 lmao. I found the humor in this comment. "Had?" As if he 'off'd his friend during the listening session. Hacked to bits.

To put thi

You forgot the part where he dedicated this piece "to the victims of fascism"

@@regulate.artificer_g23.mdctlsk Wasn't Shostakovich a victim of fascism and war, at least metaphorically?

@@GlaceonStudios Literally, not metaphorically. I think he sees Stalin's regime as just another form of fascism.

It's at the same time sad and fascinating that so many masterpieces of human art are created by people on the very edge of sanity.

Vengoheim 😂😂😂

All mothers in the world are the same ;)

Never happen to Me

More like when you don’t practice 40 hours!! The lingling gods will punish you!!

@@kevinnguyen552 I

0:18 TAdam TAdam LOL

This has the opposite effect of most metal songs.

He was contemplating suicide while writing this... Poor guy

I mean... It is

This IS anxiety and panic put to music.

Because that’s exactly what it was

he was depressed tho

found stalin.

Too bad it's not an orchestra

@@claradeusviolinus5080 That only makes it easier

While slowly increasing the tempo they have to play

@@claradeusviolinus5080 there is an orchestral arrangement and it's even awesomer

nice comment

+Angeli Alvares Yes! Well said. This is why Shostakovich is my favourite composer.

And still stay on "good terms" with Stalin.

DodderingOldMan How about Prokofiev?

you can't be more right

***** Technical death strings. It was played on string instruments, after all.

Just imagine the pit!

acdc969 I am a banana [leaf blower]

Classical music anticipated (and/or inspired) much of what we now see as radical or progressive

😂that’s so cool to imagine

Lmao

Mozart: "An angelic and jovial bycicle ride through the park" also Mozart: composes Requiem, arguably one of the most grim and sorrowful classical music compositions of all time.

Tchaikovsky: Canons *

It sounds cool if you think of it as being about cthulu, a little less so when you find out it's about how terrifying it was to live in the USSR

I like your commentary! The DSCH motif being so rapidly repeated in so many parts in so many different forms adds to the conveying of madness, I think.

flyforce16 not just the chaos of that era, but also that in his mind "I reflected that if I die someday then it's hardly likely anyone will write a work dedicated to my memory. So I decided to write one myself. You could even write on the cover: 'Dedicated to the memory of the composer of this quartet'." So Shostakovich wrote on the 19th July 1960 to his friend Isaak Davidovich Glikman, the theatre historian and receiver of over three hundred letters from the composer which were published in 1993. The irony of Shostakovich's words clearly reveals his awareness that any overt self-dedication would be absurd. There are many possible reasons for his depression when composing this quartet. He had never recovered from the loss of his first wife Nina Vasilievna Shostakovich née Varzar who had died in November 1954. (The love lament quoted from Lady Macbeth is even more poignant because it is to Nina that this opera was dedicated). He had married quickly afterwards but this second partnership proved unsuccessful and terminated in divorce in the summer of 1959. Now alone and still grieving for his former marriage Shostakovich wrote his Seventh Quartet, dedicating it to Nina. He also felt that he had betrayed his principles. Under pressure from Khrushchev's officials he had recently applied to join the communist party, which he had previously sworn never to do, and for months he underwent bouts of self-loathing for his perceived cowardice and chronic sense of fear. Finally he was beginning to have problems moving his right hand: a nightmare for any pianist. This disability would spread in the coming years causing him mobility problems in all his limbs. After years of uncertainty it was finally diagnosed in 1969 as a rare form of poliomyelitis. The musicologist and friend of Shostakovich since the early fifties, Lev Nikolyevich Lebedinsky, believes that Shostakovich intended to commit suicide by taking sleeping tablets on his return from Dresden. The plan failed only because he, Lebedinsky, was able to steal the pills and give them to Shostakovich's son, Maxim, for safe-keeping. However, as with so much in Shostakovich's life, this is far from certain because Maxim totally rejects Lebedinsky's assertions6. So the heart-felt anguish of the Eighth Quartet may show Shostakovich's awareness that the memories of early triumphs (the First and Fifth Symphonies) failed to compensate for the loneliness and the malaise of age. Or perhaps the work is haunted by the memory of his first marriage; or perhaps by the loss of self-esteem. Or maybe it resulted from contemplating the senseless destruction of Dresden so reminiscent of that which he had experienced in his now distant, beloved Russia. The musical ambiguity inherent in the quartet just reflects the uncertainty of its conception. Although Shostakovich maintained that he could never hear the Eighth Quartet without breaking into tears, the work is not self-pitying. Rather its genius is that it transcends individual pain to address all human despair. It is this which explains its profundity. The torment that it voices is the tragic, human agony of all those who have experienced grievous loss whether it be due to fascism, war, or personal bereavement. Shostakovich's Eighth String Quartet resonates with this bitter universal experience; it is truly 'music written with the heart's blood'; that is why it is a masterpiece of the twentieth century7.

Imagine having zero homelessness and 100% employment

@@bilkishchowdhury8318 Yeah. I have certainly come around some since writing that initial comment...

Allister Mendez 59 now

By no ones definition is 50 years old "New"

@@jcdenton616 lmao I forgot I even commented this, but his music is still new. The copyright he has expires in 2045, meaning his music is still new and not out in public domain. After August, 2045 (ik in 24 years 😭) his music will be considered old like Brahms, Mozart, and others 😄

@@jcdenton616 it is new compared with the other classical music out there...

​@@jcdenton616wrong

hey it’s been 5 years, how ya doing?

@@miaestella6572 still alive. Thanks for asking, stranger.

@@khongthefork didn't expect the reply-

@@dottore590 me neither lmao

@@v.h.w.2580💀

Bartok, Stravinsky.

Dance of the Knights - Prokofiev

"The Rite of Spring"' by Igor Stravinsky, "Prelude in C Sharp Minor" by Sergei Rachmaninoff

"Winter" from "The Four Seasons" by Antonio Vivaldi, "Mars" from "The Planets" by Gustav Holst, "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg

@@CatalinRam I think you meant summer? (I could be wrong tho)

Source? :p

The quoted melody is a Jewish melody "dance of death", which Shostakovich also used for his 2nd piano trio (4th movement), definitely not Stalin's favourite. The Stalin melody you mentioned is in his 1st cello concerto in the final movement

@@TaoChen100 have you got a source for this? No matter how much I search I just can't seem to find what you're describing

@@louismachin9681 I mean, what "favorite Russian folk song" was it that OP is referring to exactly? And what source claims that it's that, but twisted? For all I know, we're just picking a random melody/bit of music and claim it's _this_ or _that._

@@regulate.artificer_g23.mdctlsk I understand that but if the person I replied to Is quoting the peice then there's a good chance he will also have a link to the peice of music, not that I want to make sure he's telling the truth I just want to listen to it lol

is pure tue, honest hadrcore metal. with no distorsion but strings

It's not really that simple. His relationship with the USSR was up to heavy debate, in part due to the fact that he was state sponsored. it would be more realistic to say he was inspired by Stravinsky, which, if you've heard Rite of Spring, shouldn't be surprising.

Kyle Jackson I think Symphony 13 is pretty good proof that he disagreed with the USSR. he even commissioned for Yevgeny Yevtushenko to write the words to the fourth movement which is about how Russians felt fear whenever someone knocked on their door, among other things.

@@Pseudopyrol0 it's quite obvious the relationship with the Soviet Union. Shostakovich watched as the people around him disappeared or were killed by NKVD officials. His ninth symphony was a perfect example of his discontent to the Soviet Regime, and is quite possibly the most sarcastic piece of music ever. Shostakovich was denounced by the state as many times as he was sponsored by it, and he ended up joining the Communist party against his own principles in order to keep his family safe

Why would anyone expect it to be nice sounding? Life hurts. Why would anyone expect this piece of music to reflect anything less than that? As for his disdain for the communist party - there seems to be a breed of person who transcends history. Let us call them supra-historical men. People who are not fascinated with belonging to the trends of their time. These are the people who are never truly happy. Everything mispleases them and all they can do is tolerate life in order not to set themselves up for perpetual disappointment and dissatisfaction. To answer my own question: "Why would anyone expect it to be nice sounding?" As far as I can remember, I have never listened to anything because I was in a happy mood. Music has only ever been a way for me to alleviate my pain. I don't see how listening to a happy song could do that. A happy song echoes the notion that life is good. If life is good -- already perfect -- then why bother listening to anything? It reminds me of the impulse I get when I see a painting painted with the utmost technical skill. I want to ruin it by painting insipid things all over it. If you're not going to ruin the things that you create, then why create in the first place? Every artistic endeavour should always remain a source of pain. It is difficult for me to grasp that anyone would expect any piece of music not to be painful to listen to.

Almost? Shame on you.

it's orgasmic. just like that.

Song?

piss

Piece.

I always believed he wrote this piece right after witnessing the massive destruction in Dresden … would be more than enough to “inspire” the mood for this piece and a perfect way to portrait the evilness that suffocated everyone during those years. And yet, history repeats itself.

Another brain dead art student, you grandparents were brainwashed so hard you inherited it

@@roman9509 thank you for educating us all on what actually happened, as opposed to merely calling OP a brain dead art student. you are so sophisticated and knowledgeable, please tell me more about how le jammie dodgere is an idiot.

Ro Man Why are you just randomly going around comments and calling people "brain dead" without any reason? What did you even expect from doing that? If you can't provide any reasoning of why you're just going around the comments and calling people brain dead, that's being brain dead.

@@roman9509 Brain dead and brainwashed aren't exactly the same thing. But if you feel I am both, I am more than happy for you to tell me why you believe so.

@@roman9509 Please elaborate

That's an awful username. I'd even go so far as to say that it's I like defying expectations.

I just listen to it because it's crazy and I love it.

Stalin was already dead when shostakovich wrote this xd

that will be so epic jamming together xD

Yeahhh i did 2:38 headbanging with Malpractice of Faith No More cause they sample this.

how was that? O_O*

@@soniarv we can only assume he didn't make it

3 years I still waiting u answer

😃😃😆😖😫😭

This piece is proof that Shostakovich definitely lived a normal, happy life.

Well he did live through the siege of Leningrad, the soviet revolution, had many of his personal acquaintances disappear in the various purges, was going to be purged himself had the official not been disappeared before his hearing...

I hate to stamp out your bubble, but Shostakovich actually contemplated suicide. Just wanted to say that fact.

@@thecreator3145 shut the fuck up. Imagine being so fucking pedantic you can't detect obvious sarcasm.

Different strokes for different folks.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

after two years, did you start to hate this song? alarm do these things

Gosh

You are supporting the thing that almost made one of the greatest music minds ever to kill himself, you’ve completely missed the point

+Kenny Gates Yes, but even a Tetris soundtrack is more metal than those two.

Petar Jovanovic True. Even the Barney theme song is heavier than Asking Alexandria

+Kenny Gates Yes, but don't forget it is written for the pain and urgency during the war

+Kenny Gates This is more metal than Cannibal Corpse. I'm not even joking.

Dmitri Karamazov Haha, it almost is darker than CC

Ironically it sounds to me that this is more reminiscent of something rather bright. Being in a burning building actually. Can you see the flames and feel the panic?

Marcara081 To me, this music is more suited for a chase. Ah... a good run with this in the background.

i listen to this to put myself to sleep

You sure did

you ever get to play it?

@@connorc56 we did it in school. Very nice memory.

What a beautiful follow up

I wouldn't consider Beethoven calm and happy

+A "neocon" lol sure

A "neocon" boi have you seen what libtards are doing?

Best description of this piece ever political crap wasn't necessary

A "neocon" more like stalins tyranny

Too much Dark Souls 2, Human Effigy... too much Dark Souls 2.

YES

Wow I really hope this is true

OMG! When thinking of writing a musical using only themes and music from Shostakovich, this was exactly the scene after he leaves his lover to escape prosecution after having one final waltz with her (I'll let you guess which haha)

Hello random person .

Man, you're always mad. Loved the 14th quartet by the way.

How can you know? You're deaf

Love you ❤

@@nna1536 maybe he saw the notes