Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 (High School Performance) скачать в хорошем качестве

Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 (High School Performance)

The history behind Shostakovich's 8th quartet: Good morning/afternoon/evening everybody. Today we are going to be playing Shostakovich’s 8th quartet, his most famous and meaningful one. Before we start playing the piece, I would like to tell you about the history behind this phenomenal work. In the summer of 1960, Shostakovich's work on the score of a Soviet-East German film took him to Dresden, the German city that had been destroyed in 1945 by an Allied firebombing that killed more people than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. There, in a span of three days, Shostakovich composed a quartet inscribed “In memory of the victims of fascism and war.” The Eighth Quartet quotes liberally from Shostakovich’s own music and uses his personal motto theme, suggesting that it is about Shostakovich himself and his struggle living in the communist Soviet Union. By listening to this tragic piece, you will feel what Shostakovich felt living in a country where bombs fell almost every second, planes always were hovering in the air ready to attack, the government controlled everything you did, and people were forced out of their houses and killed in mass numbers. And before I end, I would like to remind you that this piece is dedicated to the victims of fascism and war. Thank you. PLEASE SUBSCRIBE!!! Thank you for watching.