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There is a tendency for Shostakovich’s later quartets to turn increasingly dark, evidenced by the seven-movement Eleventh Quartet, composed in 1966. The longer Twelfth Quartet dates from 1968. It opens with the use of a twelve-tone row and goes on to refer to a theme from Beethoven’s ‘Razumovsky’ Quartet Op. 59, No. 1; this work, and 12 others, were premièred by the Beethoven Quartet, to whose first violinist Dmitry Tsyganov the work is dedicated. Its successor was begun in 1969 and completed while the composer was undergoing treatment in an orthopedic clinic the following year.