The piece was written shortly after Shostakovich reluctantly joined the Communist Party. According to the score, it is dedicated “to the victims of fascism and the war”; his son Maxim interprets this as a reference to the victims of all totalitarianism, while his daughter Galina says that he dedicated it to himself, and that the published dedication was imposed by Soviet authorities. Shostakovich’s friend, Lev Lebedinsky, said that Shostakovich thought of the work as his epitaph and that he planned to commit suicide around this time. The quartet is in five movements played without pause. Its most important landmark, and primary building block, is a four-note theme built on an abbreviation of the composer’s name, DSCH, which becomes D–E flat–C–B in German nomenclature. Shostakovich had used it as a theme previously, notably in his 10th Symphony.