Pacifica Quartet&#;s Complete Shostakovich (and Friends)
If you&#;ve been following this series, you already know that it&#;s one of the great Shostakovich quartet cycles, outstanding even in a very crowded field. To the excellent versions of the 15 Shostakovich Quartets, the Pacifica adds four quartets by Shostakovich&#;s contemporaries. Individual releases already have been reviewed in these pages, and there is little more that needs to be said here. The ensemble plays this music magnificently, whether in the big, symphonic Second and Third quartets, the ideally paced Fourth, the intensely tragic Eighth, or the gaunt, mysterious, and dark final three.
Having all four two-disc volumes gathered together in an attractively-priced box does, however, reveal something very interesting about the selection of the accompanying quartets by Shostakovich&#;s contemporaries. These show a chronological progression from Miaskovsky (No. 13) through Prokofiev (No. 2), Weinberg (No. 6), and finally Schnittke (No. 3). Over the course of the 20th century, we hear the evolution of the Soviet quartet from the late-Romantic styles of Miaskovsky and, to a lesser extent Prokofiev, to an idiom in whi
A Survey of Shostakovich String Quartet Cycles
by Jens F Laurson
First published on IonArts
This is a survey of - hopefully - every extant recorded cycle of Shostakovich's String Quartets. As opposed to the 16 quartets of Beethoven's, where the survey covers nearly six dozen cycles, there are 'only' about 20 such cycles of Shostakovich's String Quartets out. For now, they are neatly bookended by the Borodin Quartet's first and fourth attempt at a cycle. (Raising the question, à la &#;Can you step in the same river twice?&#;, whether a string quartet is still the same string quartet 50 years later, with all new members).
The Borodin also raises the question as to what is a complete-enough cycle. Their first cycle, containing quartets , certainly counts - it was complete at the time and 13 out of 15 ain't bad. The Borodin's digital re-recordings of quartets 2, 3, 7, 8 & 12 for Virgin, however, which may or may not have been intended to be a cycle, don't qualify in my book. (Also, I don't think they are particularly good). Neither do the Hagen Quartet, who recorded six quartets (3, 7, 8 & 4, 11, 14), the excellent Jerusalem Quartet's 6/15 cycle (ionarts
Shostakovich and Contemporaries, Volume 2
The Pacifica Quartet continues its inventive CD survey of Dmitri Shostakovich's complete string quartets on Cedille Records with a new highly anticipated album that pairs the composer's first four quartets with one by Sergei Prokofiev. The second in a four-part series of studio recordings that launched in late , The Soviet Experience Vol. II: String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich and his Contemporaries offers Shostakovich's String Quartets No. 1 in C major, Op. 49; No. 2 in A major, Op. 68; No. 3 in F major, Op. 73; and No. 4 in D major, Op. 83; plus Prokofiev's String Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op.
The Pacifica Quartet recorded The Soviet Experience: Vol. II in July and August and November in closed sessions in the Foellinger Great Hall of Krannert Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Multiple Grammy Award-winner Judith Sherman is the series' producer and engineer. She also produced the Pacifica's Naxos CD of Elliott Carter's String Quartets Nos. 1 and 5, which won a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance.
Shostakovich and Contemporaries, Volume 1
The Pacifica Quartet, which attracted a great deal of attention for its –11 performances of Dmitri Shostakovich’s complete string quartets in New York and Chicago and at the University of Illinois, is reprising that cycle with a series of studio recordings for Cedille Records. The first in a four-part series, The Soviet Experience: String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich and his Contemporaries, Volume I, available September 27, includes Shostakovich’s String Quartets No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 92; No. 6 in G major, Op. ; No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. ; and No. 8 in C minor, Op. ; and Nikolai Miaskovsky’s String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, Op. 86 (Cedille Records CDR ). The Pacifica’s Shostakovich cycle for Cedille is unique for including quartets by other notable Soviet-era composers. Future installments will offer Prokofiev’s String Quartet No. 2, Moises Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 6, and Alfred Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3 as companions to the Shostakovich quartets.
MKI ArtistsCedille Records
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