Oh, yes-- Shostakovich's 8th 4tet is one of the most saddest pieces of music ever written... Without reading TOO much into it, there is the D - Eb - C - B motif which spells our DSCH (in German) which appears all over the place in that piece. Shostakovich wrote this originally as a sort of "suicide note" (this was right after he was given "an offer he couldn't refuse" to officially join the Communist party). He actually quotes other pieces of his throughout as well.

The second movement is terrifying and the demonic waltz of the third movement has some black humour (the odd note being held out for an inordinate amount of time, as if its a machine that's stuck or broken).

While it was written with the pretense of it being about war-torn Europe, he had confided that it was also about himself. Getting the "offer" was the straw that broke the camel's back-- thankfully there was a close circle of friends that convinced him to not commit suicide.

The D-Eb-C-B motif shows up prominently at the end of his 10th Symphony as well in the finale, which I've always taken as a big "f*** you Stalin, I'm still alive you bastard!" (damn! that's what I feel when that moment happens!) The very end has always struck me as an odd ending for a symphony supposedly mourning the death of Stalin-- it sounds to me more like "Ding dong the witch is dead!" LOL I believe he (yet again) got into trouble with the "authorities" on that because of the gleeful ending, and Shostakovich once again had to play the "What? Who? Me?" role.

Yeah, I cannot more highly recommend Shostakovich's 8th 4tet. Incidentally, there is a string orchestra arrangement of it, entitled "Chamber Symphony" (op. 110a). I still prefer the original 4tet version, but the string orchestra version is worth exploring too.

~josh

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"There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law.” ~ Claude Debussy