Review

Dmitri Shostakovich
String Quartet No.4 in D Major Op.83:

Arranged by Paul Erion


, United States
Publisher: G. Schirmer, Inc.
Date of Publication: 2011
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Primary Genre: Brass Ensemble - 5 brass

Shostakovich wrote his Quartet No.4 in 1949, at the height of the Stalin terror, when he feared for his life, and slept on the landing outside his apartment so his family would not be disturbed when the secret police came for him. In this work he confided his deepest fears and sorrows to his friends in the Borodin Quartet, who premiered it after Stalin’s death. It is filled with shadows and populated by ghosts. Nominally in D major, it begins with a 24 measure sustained D pedal on ‘cello (tuba) as first violin enters with an unquiet melodic line three octaves higher, now played by the horn, two octaves lower than originally written; trombone plays the 2nd violin part transposed down one octave. All notes in the original score are preserved by means of re-distribution of parts and octave or two octave transpositions as necessary, except for some octave doublings that are omitted. Original dynamic markings are preserved throughout. Rehearsal numbers correspond to those in the original score; measure numbers appear only in the parts.

There are no difficulties for trombone in terms of range, A–a1, but significant challenges in endurance and breath control, including a sustained pianissimo e for 35 measures near the end of the first movement, and 26 measures of repeated staccato eighths at quarter=120 in the third movement. Mutes are not required.

This is a daring transcription, and despite initial misgivings on my part, I think it is a successful one. The character of the work is inevitably changed; the spectral quality of muted strings cannot be reproduced. Paul Erion studied at Eastman and is currently Principal Tuba of the Opera Company of Philadelphia.

-Keith Davies Jones
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada