![]() After the successful revival in fall 1974 of his other opera based on Nikolai Gogol, The Nose, he requested the return of the manuscript for The Gamblers from his former pupil Galina Ustvolskaya, to whom he had given it. Most of the material for the second movement was borrowed from Shostakovich's unfinished 1942 opera The Gamblers. The movement closes with a remembrance of the opening bars. The composer described the first movement as a "novella." It begins with an unaccompanied pizzicato figure in the viola which recalls the opening of Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, followed by an austere piano line, which leads into a more animated middle section. The sonata is divided into three movements: After unexpected delays in its preparation, Druzhinin received the fair copy of the score from the composer's wife on August 6. Despite these challenges, he announced to the violist on July 5 that he had completed the score and that it had been dispatched to the Union of Soviet Composers for copying. In the final days before completing the sonata, Shostakovich complained about the inability of his right hand to remain still enough for writing and had also telephoned Druzhinin on July 4 warning him that he was considering delaying further work as a result of his declining health. Druzhinin encouraged the composer to write as he pleased and said that violists would stretch their techniques to play whatever he asked them to. He called again later in the day asking whether certain double stops played in rapid succession were possible on the viola. On the morning of July 1, 1975, Shostakovich telephoned Druzhinin to tell him that he had an idea for a Viola Sonata. ![]() In response to their proposal for a concert that would simultaneously open its 1975–76 season and commemorate his 69th birthday, he requested a program of his sonatas for cello, violin, and viola the latter to be completed in the summer. Shostakovich first announced his intention to compose the Viola Sonata in May 1975 to the management of Leningrad's Glinka Maly Hall. His Viola Sonata also marked a return to an idea that the composer had expressed in the mid-1930s of writing a cycle of works for instruments not usually considered ideal for solo roles. According to Sofia Khentova, the viola sonatas of Mieczysław Weinberg and Grigory Frid had been the impetus for Shostakovich to compose his own. Surviving rough drafts of the sonata's first movement, which use a bass clef instead of an alto, suggest that Shostakovich may have originally conceived the work for cello. It is dedicated to Fyodor Druzhinin, violist of the Beethoven Quartet. It was completed on July 5, 1975, weeks before his death. 147, is the last composition by Dmitri Shostakovich. ![]() 1975 sonata for viola and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich
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