String Quartet no. 2 in A major, op. 68

Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 68, was completed in September 1944 in just nineteen days in Ivanovo, 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. He was also half-way through his life. Another thirteen quartets remained to be composed, however, and they would come in rapid succession.