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 ...

's String Quartet No. 12 in

D-flat major D-flat major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B and C. Its key signature has five flats. The D-flat major scale is: Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in w ...

, Op. 133, was composed in

1968 Events January–February * January 1968, January – The I'm Backing Britain, I'm Backing Britain campaign starts spontaneously. * January 5 – Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Cze ...

. It is dedicated to Dmitri Tsyganov, the first violinist of the

Beethoven Quartet The Beethoven Quartet (, ''Strunnyĭ kvartet imeni Betkhovena'') was a string quartet founded between 1922 and 1923 by graduates of the Moscow Conservatory: violinists Dmitri Tsyganov and Vasily Shirinsky, violist Vadim Borisovsky and cellist S ...

, which premiered the work in Moscow on June 14.

Structure

The work lasts approximately 26 minutes and is in two movements: The piece contains

twelve-tone The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...

elements, such as the opening in the cello:

References

;Notes ;Sources *

External links

* * * * * #12 1968 compositions Compositions in D-flat major {{chamber-composition-stub