Shostakovitch: Complete String Quartets The Shostakovitch Quartet 5CD Box Set
Editorial Reviews
Album Description
The Complete String Quartets (5CD) The Shostakovitch Quartet
Andre Shishlov, violin
Sergei Pishchugin, violin
Alexander Galkovsky, viola Alexander Korchagin, cello
Shostakovitch: Complete String Quartets The Shostakovitch Quartet 5CD Box Set, Music, Dmitri Shostakovitch
Album Description
The Complete String Quartets (5CD)
The Shostakovitch Quartet
Andre Shishlov, violin
Sergei Pishchugin, violin
Alexander Galkovsky, viola Alexander Korchagin, cello
Customer Reviews:
underrated classic performances.......2005-10-30
If you have read this far, you must be serious about your Shostakovich, so I will cut to the chase. For me this box set, surprisingly unreviewed until now, is one of four highly recommendable sets of DSCH's quartets.
The 1st and 2nd Borodin sets need no further comment from me; they breathe an intensity and authenticity whilst getting to the heart of the music. The Fitzwilliam set, with its amazing recording quality, clarity and expressionistic gestures, is the best non-Russian cycle, and continues to wipe the floor with more recent sets by the Emersons, Brodskys and St Petersburgs etc. whose effects-driven performances largely miss the variegated depth of meaning therein.
This cycle by the Shostakovich Quartet, recorded between 1978 and 1988 in Moscow, has fuller tone than the Fitzwilliams, and play with a more romantic intensity than any ensemble other than the Borodins. The interpretations themselves are, as to be expected, more 'Slavic'. What become virtuoso showcases for other, non-Russian ensembles (e.g. parts of Quartet no. 8 and the end of no.9) here are transformed into unhinged Russian folk dances.
Throughout these quartets, this ensemble has the measure of Shostakovich's soundworlds whilst having a solid command of the musical structures, resulting in compelling performances that never dull the interest (the Fitzwilliams, whom I love, do tend to make my mind wander in particular slow movements).
In sum, if you are looking for a complete cycle, I highly recommend this Shostakovich Quartet set. If you are looking for fireworks (but without real emotional engagement), go for the Emersons or Brodskys. If you are looking for an equally valid alternative to the Borodins, this is it.
This cycle is the genuine article, well recorded, authentically Russian, effortlessly played. Rather meagre packaging, however, but his reflects the price.
Ignore this set at your peril!
Track Listings:
- Street Song
- Symphonies 8 & 9
- Tavener - Total Eclipse · Agraphon / Rozario · Harle · Robson · Gilchrist · AAM · Goodwin
- Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.5/Eugene Onegin Excerpts
- Tchaikovsky: the Complete Symphonies [Import]
- The Haydn Mass Edition: Großes Orgelmesse; Missa Cellensis (No. 2)
- The Life and Works of Franz Schubert [Enhanced]
- The Piano: A Journey from Hubris to Humility
- The Rubinstein Collection (Limited Edition) (Box Set) [Box set] [Limited Edition] [Special Edition]
- Trio Sonatas 1655
Track Listings
track listings
Track Listings
Can You Fly
Gossec: Requiem
Featuring "Birds"
Bass Desires
Believe There's Nothing [Enhanced] [Import]
Give Everybody Some!
Forbidden Broadway (20th Anniversary Edition) [Cast Recording]
Granados: Piano Trio
Fill Your Heart With [Import]
Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto In E Minor, Op. 85/Sea Pictures, Op. 37
European Tour 1977
Con Sabor Latino!
Grandes Exitos de Los Piano Arlequin
Cool Disposition
The Process
Classical
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