It was premiered by the Beethoven Quartet in Moscow[1] and is dedicated to composer Mieczysław (Moisei) Weinberg, a close friend of Shostakovich.

It has been described as cultivating the uncertain mood of his earlier Stalin-era quartets, as well as foreshadowing the austerity and emotional distance of his later works.

[2] The quartet typified the preference for chamber music over large scale works, such as symphonies, that characterised his late period.

According to musicologist Richard Taruskin, this made him the first Russian composer to devote so much time to the string quartet medium.

[2] It also features sul ponticello playing, an extended technique involving use of the upper harmonics of the strings, and makes use of an anapest rhythm which recurs throughout Shostakovich's oeuvre.

It is written in the passacaglia form, frequently used in Shostakovich's music, and described as an example of the influence of Baroque period composition on his work.

[4] The string quartet was dedicated to Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg, a close friend and pupil of Shostakovich.

[9] The structure of the quartet, particularly its combination of calm, relatively quiet introduction and fast, urgent second movement resembles his Tenth Symphony.

Conversely, it foreshadows the austere, subdued mood of Shostakovich's later work, his first quartet since 1956 to not have every movement marked with attacca.

[4] Ian MacDonald wrote that an attitude of "disgust" to this reception shaped the "puritanical fury" found in the Tenth String Quartet.

[1] Its sparseness has also been suggested to in part result from his health issues and a consequent inability to handwrite complex lines.

[5] Other critics are more positive, such as Richard Taruskin, who described MacDonald's book as a 'travesty', and suggesting that his dismissal of the Tenth Quartet results from a flawed, overly biographical approach to the composer.

[10] Barshai was a friend and colleague of Shostakovich, and frequent conductor of his music, including the premiere of his Fourteenth Symphony.

His arrangement is highly faithful to Shostakovich's original, different primarily in its addition of double bass, largely used to emphasise the cello part.