Diego Caicedo is a brilliant guitarist and composer based in Barcelona, whose two albums on Burning Ambulance Music, 2023’s Seis Amorfismos and 2025’s Eidos Daemonium, blend extreme metal guitar and vocals with avant-garde string quartet writing to create a genuinely unprecedented new music.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) wrote 15 string quartets between 1938 and 1974. They’ve all been recorded by Cuarteto Casals and released in three volumes by Harmonia Mundi. I asked Diego if he’d be interested in writing about this music for BA, and he agreed. So that’s what you’re getting below. Enjoy, and buy Diego’s music!

ABOUT SHOSTAKOVICH’S STRING QUARTETS, EL CUARTETO CASALS AND EIDOS DAEMONIUM

by Diego Caicedo

“Play it so that flies drop dead in mid-air and the audience starts leaving the hall from sheer boredom.” — Dmitri Shostakovich, indications for the 1st movement of String Quartet No. 15, Op. 144

In 2016, I attended the performance at L’Auditori in Barcelona of Dmitri Shostakovich’s (1906–1975) monumental Symphony No. 13 in B-flat minor, Op. 113, conducted by Kazuchi Ono. The well-known Babi Yar, composed in 1962, is an oratorio in defense of oppressed peoples for bass soloist, bass chorus, and orchestra. The OCB’s conducting and performance were solemn, precise, and magnificent, and I remember leaving deeply moved on every level: my friend and I went to a nearby bar for some beers, absolutely blown away.

The orchestration, the formal structure, and the texts by the Ukrainian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko are breathtaking. I was familiar with Shostakovich’s work, and also with the complexities of his life, but seeing Symphony No. 13 live was brutal, moving, overwhelming.

I learned about Shostakovich’s life and work during my studies with Professor Blas Emilio Atheortúa (1943-2020) and Professor Carlos Acosta de Lima (1942-) at the Autonomous University of my home city, Bucaramanga, Colombia. We analyzed some of his symphonies, the Fifth and Eighth, and some of his quartets, the Fifth and Eighth, as well as the hardships he faced during the turbulent periods of the Soviet Union in the 20th century.

Shostakovich composed 15 string quartets between 1938 and 1974, a period marked by turbulent social and political times, and by a strong tension between personal expression and the censorship of Stalin’s totalitarian, autocratic, and dictatorial regime, followed by Khrushchev’s “thaw” and then Brezhnev’s “stagnation.” These are very intimate compositions, with profound personal gestures and veiled allusions to his loved ones and close associates. There is a stark difference between these and his larger works, such as the symphonies, which served a more bureaucratic function, reflecting the directives of the party, “Russian realism,” and carrying dedications to revolutionary events and battles.

In the quartets, and in his chamber music generally, he enjoyed greater creative freedom, finding it easier to circumvent the regime’s censorship. The vast majority are dedicated to his loved ones: the members of the Beethoven Quartet, with whom he relied for the staging, rehearsals and premieres of almost all his quartets; his partners; his closest friends or “the victims of fascism and war.” In some cases, they are considered an intimate diary, with a semantic content that, despite being instrumental music, seems to convey something deeper. In many, he uses waltz-like dances that evoke the warmth of home, or marches with frenetic, dark, and violent tempos that mirror internal and external terrors. In others, as other composers have done in the past, he uses series of notes based on his name, the names of close friends and family, or chromatic note sequences alluding to the twelve-tone technique developed by Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School. And in some pieces, he uses silence to evoke the loss of a loved one.

It’s worth noting that his first quartet is Op. 49, meaning he began composing them relatively late, though without interruption until his final days, and just a couple of years after the most traumatic episode of his career and life: the anonymous negative review and subsequent isolation, censorship, and exclusion of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsenk District Op. 29, in the newspaper Pravda, which accused him of being against “Soviet realism,” and therefore against the regime. It was banned for 26 years.

In 2024 and 2025, the Harmonia Mundi label released the complete cycle of quartets, masterfully recorded by the Cuarteto Casals with a penetrating, astute, and intuitive interpretation. Their technical and expressive mastery, fidelity to the score, and the connection and rapport between the quartet members create an emotive, moving, captivating, and breathtaking performance at precisely the right moments. The dynamic expressions encompass an enormous range — from pianissimos that fade into silence to aggressive and intense fortes that mark moments of great energy — and are executed masterfully. The textures generated with different bowing, dynamic, and extended techniques are impeccable and utterly effective.

To delve into this work is to enter the inner, personal, and expressive world of one of the most remarkable composers of the 20th century. Described as a reserved, introverted, and courteous man with a very deep inner life, very close to his loved ones and friends, willing to help them in any way, passionate about football, vodka, and card games, and at the same time terrified, censored, silenced, and manipulated by the Soviet regime for much of his life, he became one of the most mysterious and misunderstood composers of the 20th century.

The string quartet cycle is divided into three parts and follows a chronological order: the first volume covers the first five quartets, from 1938 to 1953, composed during the regime and the resulting censorship imposed by Stalin. The second volume covers the sixth through twelfth quartets, from 1956 to 1968, where we find greater expressive freedom after Stalin’s death. And the third volume covers the last three, from 1970 to 1974, marked by the final stage of his life, grappling with illness and thoughts and fears related to death. For me, the Casals Quartet’s versions are considerably more expressive, exhilarating, and thrilling in its brisk moments, such as the third movement of Quartet No. 3 or the first movement of Quartet No. 7, or darker, more somber, and gloomy in movements I, III, and IV of Quartet No. 8 or Quartet No. 15, than other recordings. Perhaps I’ve delved deeper into this recent recording, or perhaps I feel closer to this quartet and connect more with its expression.

The structures are deeply connected to forms of the past and show absolute reverence for their composers: Bach, Haydn, Beethoven. The technical handling of the contrapuntal writing is impeccable, perfect, and complete, and the Cuarteto Casals’ technical and expressive approach is absolutely precise, for example: the Double Fugue of the first movement of Quartet No. 3, the Fugue of the third movement of Quartet No. 7, the Fugue of the fifth movement of Quartet No. 9, or the Fugue of the second movement of Quartet No. 11. We also find these clear moments in the Passacaglia of the fourth movement of Quartet No. 3, the Passacaglia of the third movement of Quartet No. 6, and the Passacaglia of the third movement of Quartet No. 10, with a highly accurate technical and dynamic interpretation that maintains emotion and passion.

These sections have influenced me in developing some parts of Seis Amorfismos and Eidos Daemonium. The formal, melodic, and contrapuntal structure of the Fugue: an exposition with a main melodic idea called the subject, which is imitated and “flees” in each instrument, followed by a countermelody or countersubject that follows the main melody, followed by a series of melodies as responses that blend together, generating a dense, imitative texture. This exposition is followed by a freer development with different melodic variations of the main material and ends with a restatement of the same material with some variations.

The section “Nismo Posiednji (1977)” from Eidos Daemonium is an example: a strict five-voice fugue (five repetitions) as an exposition, followed by a development that in this case is based on the spontaneity of free musical improvisation and the various extended techniques, and a finale or recapitulation quite influenced by melodic and rhythmic aspects of certain parts such as the 3rd movement of Quartet No. 7, parts of the 3rd movement of Quartet No. 11, parts of the 2nd movement of Quartet No. 10 or parts of the 2nd movement of Quartet No. 8.

The Passacaglia, on the other hand, consists of a Basso Ostinato presented in a repetitive and imitative manner, upon which melodic and rhythmic variations are developed. It is one of the oldest musical forms, along with the Rondo. The section “Tierras Negras” in Seis Amorfismos is an example: a slow melody, presented as a four-bar Basso Ostinato, which shifts among the instruments and upon which I develop textural variations with guttural vocals and distorted guitars. It has melodic and rhythmic influences related to the aforementioned Passacaglias, as well as to parts of the sixth movement of String Quartet No. 11 and parts of the third movement of String Quartet No. 6, among others.

Another essential aspect present in the quartets and in his work in general is their connection to Jewish folklore, partly due to his personal relationships with musicians such as the composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg and the violinist David Oistrakh. The influence and inclusion of exotic, frenetic, or mournful melodies, blended with his own chromatic and tonal musical language, have a connotation related to his stance against the atrocities of war and anti-Semitism. We find this in Quartet No. 2, Quartet No. 4, Quartet No. 9, his Op. 79 “From Jewish Folk Poetry,” his Seventh Symphony “Leningrad Op. 60,” and his Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 67.

On the other hand, serialism is a technique based on the predetermined and free organization of notes and sounds, as well as the various musical parameters: rhythm, intensity, and timbre. It developed from the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School with Schoenberg. Shostakovich repeatedly used series of notes based on the letters of his name in several works: DSCH [D Eb C B], as in his Quartet No. 5, Quartet No. 6, or in his Quartet No. 8, or as in his Quartet No. 14 where he uses a series of notes based on the name of Sergei Shirinsky, cellist of the Beethoven Quartet to whom it is dedicated.

He also used series of 12 chromatic notes, alluding to Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system in Quartets Nos. 12 and 13. This serial technique influenced the entire construction of Eidos Daemonium. In this case, I used three free series based on three complex chords and all their possibilities, permutations, and melodic and harmonic juxtapositions to construct the ten pieces. These three free series consist of six and seven notes: [C F# A Eb G C# E], [F G Ab A Bb B E], [B C E F F# A], arranged as vertical “characters” like chords and horizontal ones like melodies. These interact with each other in various ways, generating textures, forms, and spaces within an aesthetic related to extreme metal and free musical improvisation. At times, this creates freer formal structures that blend with these more traditional forms.

By listening attentively and without distractions to all the quartets, either chronologically or more arbitrarily — Nos. 3, 5, 7, 11, and 12 being some of my favorites, for example — I find a certain quality akin to a fractal constellation. Viewed from afar, it resembles an intricate, complex, and chaotic texture, but as I approach, I discover similarities, imitations, repetitions, and reiterations on a smaller scale. They are an essential part of the chamber music repertoire and one of its greatest contributions to 20th century music. They are one of the major influences, and certainly not the only one, on my own small exercise in musical composition. They are intimate and personal gems, with relevance and transcendence on both an emotional and intellectual level, with absolutely precise musical, compositional and technical aspects, perfectly interpreted by Cuarteto Casals, and with an extra-musical content that I absolutely share: a message of freedom of expression, an anti-war message that advocates for people and nations that are violated, oppressed, colonized, hegemonized, annihilated, and erased, and which even today, and apparently with great strength and support almost worldwide, remains with an alarming, monstrous, and terrifying relevance.

— Diego Caicedo