Shostakovich String Quartet No. 4

Shostakovich is one of the easiest composers to do podcasts about
because his life and his music is full of such incredible
stories. But as easy as it is, it's also complicated.
Shostakovich's music is sometimes heard as a musical history
book, a testament, which it often is, but we should never lose
sight of the fact that Shostakovich was a composer first, not a
politician.  So today we're going to be looking at the 4th
quartet in two contexts, the historical and the musical, and then
try to see how one works(or doesn't) with the other. 
 How do you incorporate religion into music, and how do you
handle the heavy burden that was laid down to you by masters of
the String Quartet like Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert?
How do you write political music without getting in trouble with
the authorities? How do you speak out against injustice when it
can put you in grave danger? Shostakovich, as always, has the
answers. Join us!