The Stone Guest op.74

The String Quartet No. 8 with the title “Der steinerne Gast“ (The Stone Guest) was written by the Russian composer Elena Firsova in 1995 on commission from the Nomos Quartet.

The musical material is based on Schubert, Firsova comments: "That is why she uses parts from her solo cantata for soprano and orchestra on Ossip Mandelstam's poetry cycle ‘The Stone‘.

"My quartet has two movements: The first is a very fast and short introduction of about three minutes, the second movement, the main movement, lasts about 18 to 19 minutes. Here I use some ideas and even short quotes (from the first and second movements) from Schubert's last string quartet in G major D 887. The appearance of Schubert in these quotes is quite terrible and dangerous and reminds me of the appearance of Pushkin's Stone Guest."