Dmitri Shostakovich's Quartet no. 8 (movements I and II, out of five.)

Sit back and knock yourself out for the next 7 minutes!


Written in five days in 1960, when Shostakovitch was supposed to be writing a propaganda film score, this string quartet is performed more often than others because it is accessible to performers, even student performers, and to first-time audiences.
Similarly it seems alot of young composers fall for Shostakovitch"s music and then reject it for more "complexity" only to come back later and discover the many layers of things going on in his music.

I go apeshit at chamber music concerts, especially quartets. It's in chamber music that composers like to work out their ideas. Also, watch the communication between these four players, The Seraphina Quartet.