Kai Czepiczka wrote:

>A few weeks ago my wife went to a concert where Shostakovich's "Chamber
>Symphony" op. 110a was performed.  Unfortunately I had not the opportunity
>to go there myself, but she told me that she recognized some tunes from the
>"Piano Trio No. 2" op. 67 (the beginning of the Allegretto).  So I wonder
>if op. 110 a is based on op. 67, anyone who knows this? When I looked for
>op. 110a in a book about Shostakovich I couldn't find it listed, but I
>noticed that op. 110 is his "String Quartet No. 8".  Is there any
>connection between op. 110 and 110a (I'm not familiar with the String
>Quartets)?

The Op.  110a (or, more correctly, Op.  110bis) Chamber Symphony is
an orchestration by DSCH's friend, the conductor (and violist) Rudolph
Barshai, of the String Quartet No.  8 -- to my mind one of the most
expressive pieces in Shostakovich's chamber music.

In July 1960, writing to the musicologist Isaac Glikan, DSCH said of the
original String Quartet:

   "I was staying in the town of Goerlitz...40 km from Dresden. A place
   of unimagined beauty...I wrote a quartet that is ideologically flawed
   and of no use to anybody. I was thinking about the fact that if I
   die sometime or other, it's pretty unlikely that someone will write
   a work in my memory. So I decided to write such a piece myself. You
   could even write on the cover 'Dedicated to the memory of the author
   of this quartet.' The basic theme of the quartet consists of the
   notes DSCH i.e. my initials (Ed. note - D, E flat, C, B, which in
   German notation corresponds to the composer's initials) The quartet
   makes use of themes from my works and the revolutionary song 'Tormented
   by Grievous Bondage.' My own themes are the following; from the First
   Symphony, the Eigth Symphony, the Piano Trio, the (First) Cello
   Concerto and Lady Macbeth. There are also hints of Wagner (the Funeral
   March from Goetterdaemmerung) and Tchaikovsky (the second subject of
   the first movement of the Sixth Symphony). Oh yes!...and there's also
   a theme from my 10th Symphony. Quite a little hotchpotch. The
   pseudotragedy of this quartet is such that when I wrote it my tears
   flowed as abundantly as urine after half a dozen beers."

In celebration of which, I shall now put the self-same piece on the CD
player and pour a Guinness!

Cheers.

Tim Mahon
Alexandria, VA
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