Shostakovich's Two Pieces for String Quartet—also known as Two Movements for String Quartet, Adagio and Allegretto, and Elegy and Polka—were composed in 1931, after he had completed of his first ballet The Age of Gold, and while he was still engaged on the composition of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Although the most recent biographies are sketchy on the work's origins, it was apparently composed in 1931 at the request of the J. Vuillaume Quartet. The work was never published and remained in manuscript until 1985, when the State Copyright Agency in Moscow sent the work to England's Fitzwilliam Quartet for performance. The work has since become used as encore pieces at string quartet concerts.

The Two Pieces are not original works for the medium but rather transcriptions of two pre-existing works. The first piece—an "Adagio Elegy"—is taken from Act I of the opera Lady Macbeth. There, it is sung by Lady Macbeth to a melancholy and frankly erotic text: "No one will ever put his hand round my waist, No one will press his lips to mine, No one will stroke my white breast, No one will tire me out with his passionate embraces." The second piece—an "Allegretto Polka"—is taken from Act III of the ballet The Age of Gold. A sarcastic "wrong-note" dance, the Polka may be Shostakovich's greatest hit outside Russia. Transcriptions of it exist for piano, orchestra, chamber orchestra, jazz band, pop song ("The Angel of Peace in Geneva"), and this string quartet version.

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