DSCH is a

musical motif In music, a motif () or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition. The motif is the smallest structural unit ...

used by the composer

Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded as a major composer. Shostak ...

to represent himself. It is a

musical cryptogram A musical cryptogram is a cryptogrammatic sequence of musical symbols which can be taken to refer to an extra-musical text by some 'logical' relationship, usually between note names and letters. The most common and best known examples result fr ...

in the manner of the

BACH motif In music, the BACH motif is the motif (music), motif, a succession of note (music), notes important or characteristic to a musical composition, piece, ''B flat, A, C, B natural''. In Letter notation, German musical nomenclature, in whi ...

, consisting of the notes ''D, E-flat, C, B natural'', or in German musical notation ''D, Es, C, H'' (pronounced as "De-Es-Ce-Ha"), thus standing for the composer's initials in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

transliteration: ''D. Sch.'' (Dmitri Schostakowitsch).

Usage

By Shostakovich

The motif occurs in many of his works, including: * Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77 * Fugue No. 15 in D-flat major, Op. 87 (only once, in the stretto) * String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 92 * Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 * String Quartet No. 6 in G major, Op. 101 (Played all at once by the four instruments at the end of each movement) * String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (appears in every single movement) * Symphony No. 14 in G minor, Op. 135 * Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141. * Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 61 (questionable)

By others

Many homages to Shostakovich (such as Schnittke's ''Prelude in memory of Dmitri Shostakovich'' or Tsintsadze's 9th String Quartet) make extensive use of the motif. The British composer

Ronald Stevenson Ronald James Stevenson (6 March 1928 – 28 March 2015) was a Scottish composer, pianist, and music scholar. Biography The son of a Scottish father and Welsh mother, Stevenson was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1928. He studied at the Roya ...

composed a large

Passacaglia The passacaglia (; ) is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used today by composers. It is usually of a serious character and is typically based on a bass- ostinato and written in triple metre. Origin Th ...

on it. Also

Edison Denisov Edison Vasilievich Denisov (, 6 April 1929 – 24 November 1996) was a Russian composer in the so-called " Underground", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division of Soviet music. Biography Denisov was born in Tomsk, Siberia. He studied math ...

dedicated some works (1969 DSCH for clarinet, trombone, cello and piano, and his 1970

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

sonata) to Shostakovich, by quoting the motif several times and using it as the first four notes of a twelve-tone series. Denisov was Shostakovich's protégé for a long time.

References

Bibliography

* Brown, Stephen C., “Tracing the Origins of Shostakovich’s Musical Motto,” ''Intégral'' 20 (2006): 69–103.
Gasser, Mark. "Ronald Stevenson, Composer-Pianist: An Exegetical Critique from a Pianistic Perspective"
PhD diss. estern Australia Edith Cowan University, 2013.

External links