In 1956 Shostakovich became seriously ill, and it was during this illness, between the 7th and 31st August 1956, that the String Quartet no. 6 in G major, opus 101, was composed.

Several important events had happened in the years between the completion of the Fifth Quartet in November 1953 and that of the Sixth Quartet in 1956. Stalin whose policies had persecuted Shostakovich in 1936 and 1948 had died on the 5th March 1953, the same day as Prokofiev (whose death consequently went virtually unnoticed). On the 9th March Shostakovich's 'official' grief for the loss of the leader were published on page 3 of 'Izvestiya'. Politically things then seemed to thaw. Khrushchev denounced Stalin and his 'cult of personality' to a closed session of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party in the early morning of the 25th February 1956. Following this 'secret' speech prisoners in Stalin's labour camps began to be released.

But tragedy also occurred. Shostakovich's wife, Nina, had suddenly been hospitalised on December 3rd 1954 in Yerevan in Armenia. Shostakovich, who was attending a concert in Moscow, rushed to her side but when he reached her she was in a coma. She died on December 5th, 1954. Family grief was soon followed by another death. In November 1955 Shostakovich's loving mother also died.

In late July 1956 Shostakovich suddenly married Margarita Kainova, a thirty-two year-old Komsomol activist and instructor. The partnership surprised his friends and indeed was not to prove a success since it ended in 1959 with a divorce, but when the Sixth Quartet was written the couple were in Komarovo on honeymoon.

G major is a key which, at least in the baroque age, tended to be happy and benedictory; indeed, despite the recent tumultuous events, Shostakovich's Sixth Quartet is surprisingly carefree and relaxed. It is reminiscent of his First Quartet not only in being simple in form and melodic in nature but also in showing no indications of the world Shostakovich had recently experienced. For the first time since writing his opus 93, his Tenth Symphony, in 1953 Shostakovich declared himself satisfied with something he had composed.

The quartet, which lasts approximately 25 minutes, has four movements marked:

1. Allegretto,
2. Moderato con molto,
3. Lento, attacca
4. Lento - Allegretto

After the rigours of the Fifth Quartet its successor is simpler and radiates a melodious, undramatic beauty. The first movement, in the form of a sonata (whose second subject quotes an identical section in the third quartet) is mainly in common time. It finishes with an impressive 40 bar coda which culminates in recalling the bass motif already heard bars 11-13 and which will recur, if transposed at the end of each of the following movements.

The perky and lively mood is continued into the beginning of the second movement. Then a more thoughtful and airy theme is introduced and the two moods, the thoughtful and the perky, intertwine for the rest of the waltz-like movement.

The heart of the quartet lies in the G flat major third movement. Here a passacaglia, whose base theme is repeated seven times, replaces the airy mood with one of greater solemnity. But between the fifth and sixth repeat Shostakovich introduces a theme which recalls the first theme of the slow movement of Prokofiev's Second Quartet written fifteen years earlier. Shostakovich's controlled passacaglia recalls the monumental First Violin Concerto which had been finally premièred the year before after languishing eight years 'in the drawer'.

The final movement continues directly on from the end of the third and, whilst referring to the theme of the passacaglia and echoing its solemnity, manages to reintroduce the vitality of the first movement.

The result is a work which, whilst maintaining the counterpoint of previous quartets, effuses a mood reminiscent of the lyric simplicity and romanticism of the First Quartet rather than attempting profundity.

The work was premièred on 7th October 1956 at the Glinka Concert Hall in Leningrad by the Beethoven Quartet (Dmitri Tsyganov, Vasili Shirinsky, Vadim Borisovsky and Sergei Shirinsky). The autographed manuscript is preserved in Moscow at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI). The quartet has no dedication.