68, was completed in September 1944[1] in just nineteen days[2] in Ivanovo,[3] 300 kilometres north-east of Moscow.
It was premiered by the Beethoven Quartet and is dedicated to the composer Vissarion Shebalin.
When Shostakovich began writing his Second String Quartet he had already completed eight of his fifteen symphonies.
This strong tone is subdued by the lyrical, wandering mood of the recitative.
The first violin leads a slow, distressed line of music over soft seventh chords, and eventually finds calm in the romance.