# Shostakovich string quartets



## Steve Wright

I just wanted to talk about these, as I have grown quite obsessed with them of late. I have listened to very little else over the last three weeks. Particularly 3-8 and 10, all of which I have grown very fond of. If I had to pick favourites, I suppose I would go for 3, 4 and 7.
I haven't yet got onto 11 onwards, and I know I'm going to be entering a different sound world there.
But tell me, which are your favourite DSCH SQs? Favourite moments? And favourite renditions of them? I have these two sets on CD (the Borodin set is their second cycle, from 78-83) and both seem very fine. I've also been enjoying the Eder Qt on Naxos.


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## NLAdriaan

I have the same BorodinQ set in the yellow box and a separate later recording of BorodinQ on Virgin. I see that since then the Borodin Q has issued a full cycle on Chandos and just a few months ago another full cycle on Decca 

I always cherished the 8th Quartet but I also must admit that I didn't return to this music for a long time. So, your thread here is a good opportunity to go through this wonderful music once more.


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## Kiki

My current favourite is No. 8. There's something mesmerising (and brainwashing) about it. I'm especially obsessed with the little pause in the Allegretto.

The Borodin and the Fiztwilliam that you listed are excellent. I also enjoy the Borodin's remake (the one on Decca) and the Jerusalam (BBC Magazine) very much, and the highly dramatic and super-quick live account of the Borodin (BBC Legends).


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## EdwardBast

I have the Borodin's first complete set and a couple others I rarely listen to. Numbers 2 and 8 are the only ones I'm not enthusiastic about. If I started writing about individual movements I'd be here all day, but the first and second movements of the 5th and the first movement and passacaglia of the 10th are special favorites. Along with the first and second movements of the 4th …


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## Dirge

I've listened to the Shostakovich quartets frequently enough over the decades to have worked out a list of favorites, a listening hierarchy as it were, that separates the sheep from the goats as I hear them …

#5, #13 ~ solid favorites
#7, #8 ~ borderline favorites
#3, #12 ~ limbo/pergatory
#4, #9 ~ non-favorites on the whole with some favorite aspects or individual movements
#10, #11 ~ non-favorites
#1, #2, #6, #14, #15 ~ anti-favorites

I also have a list of long-standing favorite recordings that have served me well enough over the years …

#3 - Borodin I [Melodiya/Chandos '67]
#4 - Borodin I [Melodiya/Chandos '67]
#5 - Borodin II [Melodiya '83] or Atrium Quartet [Zig-Zag '08]
#7 - Borodin I [Melodiya/Chandos '67]
#8 - Borodin [Decca '62]
#9 - Shostakovich [Olympia '85]
#12 - Beethoven [Melodiya '69]
#13 - Shostakovich [Olympia '80] or Beethoven [Melodiya '71]
To the above, I would add the Hagen Quartett [DG '05] recordings of #3, #7 & #8 (all on one album) as the most different and interesting alternatives that I happen to like.

#3 was initially presented as a "war quartet" with subtitles for each movement: "Calm unawareness of the future cataclysm"; "Rumblings of unrest and anticipation"; "The forces of war are unleashed"; "Homage to the dead"; and "The eternal question: why and to what purpose?" This program was quickly retracted, but it does, superficially, at least, fit the music pretty well and provide quick entry into the work, which was by all accounts a special favorite of the composer. Borodin I is my reference here, even if I'm not quite sure what I think about the conspicuously slow pace of the Adagio (where I prefer the stern, unlingering approach of the Beethoven Quartet [Melodiya '65]).

#4 is included for the radiant opening (which sounds like a Hebrew bagpiper welcoming the sunrise after an Orkney bar mitzvah) and for the bizarre final movement (which sounds like the Hebrew/Klezmer counterpart to an Irish wake). Oy. Borodin I is the only account that nails these aspects of the work; indeed, I never gave this quartet a second thought until I heard Borodin I.

#5 calls for manly, authoritative playing of great rhetorical eloquence to properly put across the big-boned formal structure of the Sonata-Allegro first movement (widely regarded as Shostakovich's finest sonata-based movement in any work), and it also requires that the playing be pushed to its absolute stress limits within that formal context. What's more, the work's very "Russian"-sounding themes had better sound like they just barely survived the long Siberian winter shacked up with Julie Christie. Borodin II is superb here, with the first violinist sounding as stressed/distressed in the first movement as humanly possible. The Atrium Quartet gives a similarly conceived but slightly less stressed account in richer, better-balanced sound.

#7 is brief but elusively multifarious, as the first movement requires nervous energy and a certain folk-y Russian charm, the touchy/tenuous minimalist slow movement requires great refinement and something of an icy but delicate magic touch, while the final movement requires the utmost in fuguish virtuosity here and lilting waltzing grace there. The Hagen Quartett rejects all that and simply executes the hell out of it from beginning to end, treating Shostakovich less like a long-suffering nephew of Doctor Zhivago and more like a modernist Webern disciple-it shouldn't work, but it's played so well that it sort of does work. If it's not the Seventh of my mind's ear, it's pretty compelling in its own right, and it gives the Allegro fugue of the last movement the absolute ride of its life. Borodin I, on the other hand, is pretty close to the Seventh of my mind's ear; I especially like the way the group allows secondary voices that are often relegated to an underlying murmur in the slow movement to have more presence and impact than usual.

#8's directly expressive and repetitive nature requires great rhetorical eloquence and unflagging focus and concentration to keep me engaged, and that's what the '60s-era Borodin Quartet is all about-the one-off 1962 Decca account edges out the 1967 Melodiya account from the first cycle. The Hagen Quartet is once again interesting in its relentlessly high-strung modernist sort of way.

#9 is included for its everything-including-the-kitchen-sink final movement, which must be played in the bold, no-holds-barred manner that the Shostakovich Quartet (and no other quartet that I've heard) plays it for it to come off well.

#12 embeds the awkward tonality of D-flat major into the work's pseudo-serial DNA to create an uncomfortable hybrid that, if you're like me and highly susceptible to suggestion, sounds tonal if someone authoritative tells you it's tonal. The tonality sort of drifts in and out of focus to my tin ear-until, that is, the very end of the work, when it's presented clearly and unambiguously in what passes for a happy/triumphant ending in Shostakovich's musical world (sounding a hell of a lot like the end of Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks" concerto in the process, as one commentator rightly notes). The work is rugged and decidedly abstract (a rarity in Shostakovich's output), with a desolate, primitive feel about it much of the time. It's a tough work to bring together and make "click," but the Beethoven Quartet does an admirable job of it in their etched and unsentimental yet poetic way.

#13, like #12, is an uncomfortable tonal-serial hybrid (this time in B-flat minor), but here it's cast in one long morphing arch of death-obsessed grimness and grotesquery revolving around the viola. The grimly subdued outer sections enclose a rather mocking and derisive dance of death for arthritic skeletons (the sick Shostakovich giving Death the finger, I should think). A number of groups provide the requisite focus and concentration to pull off this work, but it's the Shostakovich Quartet that best relates the various sections and ties everything together, and it does so in the most fluid and continuous (least episodic) way. The Beethoven Quartet's instruments are strung with the raw nerves of your dead ancestors, and its piercing playing penetrates straight to the spine like fingernails scraping a blackboard-it ain't pretty, but it's pretty compelling.


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## CnC Bartok

These are undoubtedly great works, and you could also say echt-Shostakovich, or at least him without any political baggage. A bit black-and-white as a comment, but I think people will vaguely see what I mean. I don't see them as anywhere near as good as the Bartók quartets, but that's no criticism.

Obviously there's more late Shostakovich in these than in the Symphonies, so they can be hard nuts to crack, especially the last three. There are no episodes of triviality in these.

I grew up with the Borodin incomplete set, then on Eurodisc LPs, now on Chandos. Surprisingly, these got subsumed by the wonderful Fitzwilliam set, and still are. I also have the Eder set on Naxos, which would be worth having at any price!

Recently I have been working my way through the newest Borodin set, on Decca. I think these might be the "real thing" set of more modern times. They are more reflective, and on the surface, less exciting than the earlier set I know, but they are far from under-characterised. Well worth the (modest) investment. It may sound silly, but you can tell these musicians know this music inside out.

Another set slowly on its way is coming from the young English Quartet, the Carducci Qt. The single CD available has 4, 8, and the magnificent 11, and are remarkably intense, and I have their latest installment on order.


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## SuperTonic

There's something I've always wondered about Shostakovich's SQ cycle. Over the course of the 15 quartets he never repeats a key, and some of them are in pretty obscure keys. Does anyone know if he had an overarching plan to compose one in every key? Kind of like a WTC of string quartets?

If so, its a shame he didn't live long enough to complete the cycle. That would have been amazing.


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## wkasimer

NLAdriaan said:


> I have the same BorodinQ set in the yellow box and a separate later recording of BorodinQ on Virgin. I see that since then the Borodin Q has issued a full cycle on Chandos and just a few months ago another full cycle on Decca


The Chandos set is actually the earliest Borodin recording. It's missing #14 and #15 because at the time of the recording, Shostakovich hadn't yet composed them.

Lately I've been enjoying the Pacifica Quartet's traversal, in part for the added bonus of some quartets by DSCH's contemporaries.


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## EdwardBast

SuperTonic said:


> There's something I've always wondered about Shostakovich's SQ cycle. Over the course of the 15 quartets he never repeats a key, and some of them are in pretty obscure keys. Does anyone know if he had an overarching plan to compose one in every key? Kind of like a WTC of string quartets?
> 
> If so, its a shame he didn't live long enough to complete the cycle. That would have been amazing.


Yes, that was his plan.



CnC Bartok said:


> Obviously there's more late Shostakovich in these than in the Symphonies, so they can be hard nuts to crack, especially the last three. There are no episodes of triviality in these.


Number 14 never struck me as difficult. I always found it relatively tame and welcoming.


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## Iota

Quite surprised to hear the 2nd being cold-shouldered, for some reason, I must say I like it a great deal. From the moment it opens managing somehow to sound like it's simultaneously joyously in love and sucking lemons, I'm hooked. The fact that the lemons win the day doesn't spoil it at all. The one that excites me least is No.8. I know the Pacifica and Shostakovich's performances of the complete set, with which I'm very happy. 

Also love the Bartok quartets (mentioned above) with the Vegh doing a sui generis No.1, and the Hagen the rest, being very satisfactory to my ears. Which of the Bartok or Shostakovich cycles I took to the desert island (other planet?) would depend entirely on my mood on the day of departure.


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## Steve Wright

Iota said:


> Quite surprised to hear the 2nd being cold-shouldered, for some reason, I must say I like it a great deal. From the moment it opens managing somehow to sound like it's simultaneously joyously in love and sucking lemons, I'm hooked. The fact that the lemons win the day doesn't spoil it at all. The one that excites me least is No.8. I know the Pacifica and Shostakovich's performances of the complete set, with which I'm very happy.
> 
> Also love the Bartok quartets (mentioned above) with the Vegh doing a sui generis No.1, and the Hagen the rest, being very satisfactory to my ears. Which of the Bartok or Shostakovich cycles I took to the desert island (other planet?) would depend entirely on my mood on the day of departure.


I must say I've only got really familiar so far with 1 (because it's accessible and delightful in its own way if perhaps not the echt-DSCH of the later quartets) and 3-8. 2 has somehow slipped through my radar (I think because 3 has always seemed such a great place to start, and then I move forward from there), although I have really enjoyed it the 2 or 3 times I have played it. You've made me want to get to know it properly.

As to the Bartok SQs, yes, I do enjoy those a lot and must go back to them. I have this set, below, which I am very happy with. 
DSCH's and Bartok's - the two great SQ cycles of the 20C? Someone mentioned Villa-Lobos' too...?


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## CnC Bartok

Iota said:


> Quite surprised to hear the 2nd being cold-shouldered, for some reason, I must say I like it a great deal. From the moment it opens managing somehow to sound like it's simultaneously joyously in love and sucking lemons, I'm hooked. The fact that the lemons win the day doesn't spoil it at all. The one that excites me least is No.8. I know the Pacifica and Shostakovich's performances of the complete set, with which I'm very happy.
> 
> Also love the Bartok quartets (mentioned above) with the Vegh doing a sui generis No.1, and the Hagen the rest, being very satisfactory to my ears. Which of the Bartok or Shostakovich cycles I took to the desert island (other planet?) would depend entirely on my mood on the day of departure.


No, I'm happy to put my hand up and say I like No.2. I do think, especially in the first two movements, it's quite Bartoky, but of course none the worse for that!


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## Iota

Steve Wright said:


> DSCH's and Bartok's - the two great SQ cycles of the 20C?


They're certainly two dominant silhouettes in the skyline. The Britten quartets also sit comfortably in their presence for me, wielding miraculous power with the barest of gestures at times, the first currently being my favourite, particularly in this incandescent performance:












Steve Wright said:


> Someone mentioned Villa-Lobos' too...?


Interesting, I had no idea he'd written any! Will certainly investigate.


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## starthrower

Iota said:


> Interesting, I had no idea he'd written any! Will certainly investigate.


He wrote more quartets than Shosty! I love Britten too. I have the Brilliant Classics set.


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## KenOC

Several of DSCH's quartets have been arranged for various small orchestras. The best known were prepared by Rudolf Barshai with the composer's authorization and are included in his opus listings:

Op. 49: String Quartet No. 1 in C major (1938) (arranged as Chamber Symphony for Strings, Op. 49a)
Op. 73: String Quartet No. 3 in F major (1946) (arranged as Chamber Symphony for Strings, Woodwinds, Harp, and Celesta, Op. 73a)
Op. 83: String Quartet No. 4 in D major (1949) (arranged as Chamber Symphony for Small Orchestra, Op. 83a)
Op. 110: String Quartet No. 8 in C minor (1960), dedicated to the victims of fascism and war (arranged as Chamber Symphony for Strings, Op. 110a)
Op. 118: String Quartet No. 10 in A-flat major (1964) (arranged as Chamber Symphony for Strings, Op. 118a)

These are readily available and the arrangements work well, IMO. Others doubtless feel differently! This CD 2-fer has all but Op. 49a.


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## NLAdriaan

starthrower said:


> He wrote more quartets than Shosty! I love Britten too. I have the Brilliant Classics set.











Villa Lobos, all 17 (!) quartets and (I think) the only complete recording on the market, yours for €8.75 on Amazon. It is really worthwile, played by Quartetto Latinoamericano (from Mexico).

Britten (Sorrel) also here

I also would like to add the Quatuor Pour la Fin du Temps by Messiaen. Other instruments required, but due to force majeure, as in the concentration camp only the piano and clarinet were available instead of 2nd violin and viola....And the Quartet also is really something!

Back on topic to Shostakovich again?

Thanks Dirge, for your great guidance above, helps me to get to know them better.

Actually as of tomorrow, the Borodin Q starts a full Shostakovich concert cycle in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, 30 minutes from my home. Maybe I have to go to at least one of these concerts.

The new Decca set by the Borodin Q is on my Amazon shopping list. Always have to think a few times before pushing the purchase button. Threads like these sure are stimulating.


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## Mandryka

Dirge said:


> I've listened to the Shostakovich quartets frequently enough over the decades to have worked out a list of favorites, a listening hierarchy as it were, that separates the sheep from the goats as I hear them …
> 
> #5, #13 ~ solid favorites
> #7, #8 ~ borderline favorites
> #3, #12 ~ limbo/pergatory
> #4, #9 ~ non-favorites on the whole with some favorite aspects or individual movements
> #10, #11 ~ non-favorites
> #1, #2, #6, #14, #15 ~ anti-favorites
> 
> I also have a list of long-standing favorite recordings that have served me well enough over the years …
> 
> #3 - Borodin I [Melodiya/Chandos '67]
> #4 - Borodin I [Melodiya/Chandos '67]
> #5 - Borodin II [Melodiya '83] or Atrium Quartet [Zig-Zag '08]
> #7 - Borodin I [Melodiya/Chandos '67]
> #8 - Borodin [Decca '62]
> #9 - Shostakovich [Olympia '85]
> #12 - Beethoven [Melodiya '69]
> #13 - Shostakovich [Olympia '80] or Beethoven [Melodiya '71]
> To the above, I would add the Hagen Quartett [DG '05] recordings of #3, #7 & #8 (all on one album) as the most different and interesting alternatives that I happen to like.
> 
> #3 was initially presented as a "war quartet" with subtitles for each movement: "Calm unawareness of the future cataclysm"; "Rumblings of unrest and anticipation"; "The forces of war are unleashed"; "Homage to the dead"; and "The eternal question: why and to what purpose?" This program was quickly retracted, but it does, superficially, at least, fit the music pretty well and provide quick entry into the work, which was by all accounts a special favorite of the composer. Borodin I is my reference here, even if I'm not quite sure what I think about the conspicuously slow pace of the Adagio (where I prefer the stern, unlingering approach of the Beethoven Quartet [Melodiya '65]).
> 
> #4 is included for the radiant opening (which sounds like a Hebrew bagpiper welcoming the sunrise after an Orkney bar mitzvah) and for the bizarre final movement (which sounds like the Hebrew/Klezmer counterpart to an Irish wake). Oy. Borodin I is the only account that nails these aspects of the work; indeed, I never gave this quartet a second thought until I heard Borodin I.
> 
> #5 calls for manly, authoritative playing of great rhetorical eloquence to properly put across the big-boned formal structure of the Sonata-Allegro first movement (widely regarded as Shostakovich's finest sonata-based movement in any work), and it also requires that the playing be pushed to its absolute stress limits within that formal context. What's more, the work's very "Russian"-sounding themes had better sound like they just barely survived the long Siberian winter shacked up with Julie Christie. Borodin II is superb here, with the first violinist sounding as stressed/distressed in the first movement as humanly possible. The Atrium Quartet gives a similarly conceived but slightly less stressed account in richer, better-balanced sound.
> 
> #7 is brief but elusively multifarious, as the first movement requires nervous energy and a certain folk-y Russian charm, the touchy/tenuous minimalist slow movement requires great refinement and something of an icy but delicate magic touch, while the final movement requires the utmost in fuguish virtuosity here and lilting waltzing grace there. The Hagen Quartett rejects all that and simply executes the hell out of it from beginning to end, treating Shostakovich less like a long-suffering nephew of Doctor Zhivago and more like a modernist Webern disciple-it shouldn't work, but it's played so well that it sort of does work. If it's not the Seventh of my mind's ear, it's pretty compelling in its own right, and it gives the Allegro fugue of the last movement the absolute ride of its life. Borodin I, on the other hand, is pretty close to the Seventh of my mind's ear; I especially like the way the group allows secondary voices that are often relegated to an underlying murmur in the slow movement to have more presence and impact than usual.
> 
> #8's directly expressive and repetitive nature requires great rhetorical eloquence and unflagging focus and concentration to keep me engaged, and that's what the '60s-era Borodin Quartet is all about-the one-off 1962 Decca account edges out the 1967 Melodiya account from the first cycle. The Hagen Quartet is once again interesting in its relentlessly high-strung modernist sort of way.
> 
> #9 is included for its everything-including-the-kitchen-sink final movement, which must be played in the bold, no-holds-barred manner that the Shostakovich Quartet (and no other quartet that I've heard) plays it for it to come off well.
> 
> #12 embeds the awkward tonality of D-flat major into the work's pseudo-serial DNA to create an uncomfortable hybrid that, if you're like me and highly susceptible to suggestion, sounds tonal if someone authoritative tells you it's tonal. The tonality sort of drifts in and out of focus to my tin ear-until, that is, the very end of the work, when it's presented clearly and unambiguously in what passes for a happy/triumphant ending in Shostakovich's musical world (sounding a hell of a lot like the end of Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks" concerto in the process, as one commentator rightly notes). The work is rugged and decidedly abstract (a rarity in Shostakovich's output), with a desolate, primitive feel about it much of the time. It's a tough work to bring together and make "click," but the Beethoven Quartet does an admirable job of it in their etched and unsentimental yet poetic way.
> 
> #13, like #12, is an uncomfortable tonal-serial hybrid (this time in B-flat minor), but here it's cast in one long morphing arch of death-obsessed grimness and grotesquery revolving around the viola. The grimly subdued outer sections enclose a rather mocking and derisive dance of death for arthritic skeletons (the sick Shostakovich giving Death the finger, I should think). A number of groups provide the requisite focus and concentration to pull off this work, but it's the Shostakovich Quartet that best relates the various sections and ties everything together, and it does so in the most fluid and continuous (least episodic) way. The Beethoven Quartet's instruments are strung with the raw nerves of your dead ancestors, and its piercing playing penetrates straight to the spine like fingernails scraping a blackboard-it ain't pretty, but it's pretty compelling.


Try St Petersburg Quartet for 13, I spent a bit of time exploring this quartet once and that's the recording I thought was the most impressive, but I have not heard The Beethoven Quartet play it, I can imagine it's very good (I like their late Beethoven.)


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## KenOC

I have, pilfered from somewhere, a 26-page Word document that goes into quite a bit of detail concerning all 15 of DSCH’s quartets. If you want it, PM me and I’ll send you a share link.


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## Mandryka

Steve Wright said:


> I just wanted to talk about these, as I have grown quite obsessed with them of late. I have listened to very little else over the last three weeks. Particularly 3-8 and 10, all of which I have grown very fond of. If I had to pick favourites, I suppose I would go for 3, 4 and 7.
> I haven't yet got onto 11 onwards, and I know I'm going to be entering a different sound world there.
> But tell me, which are your favourite DSCH SQs? Favourite moments? And favourite renditions of them? I have these two sets on CD (the Borodin set is their second cycle, from 78-83) and both seem very fine. I've also been enjoying the Eder Qt on Naxos.
> View attachment 113446
> 
> View attachment 113447


My own favourites are the last three, 13, 14 and 15, which forms a very attractive trio, with contrasting moods. I especially appreciate 14 for not being so weighty. It's as if, I'm these final quartets, Shostakovich was reflecting on death, and the sheer range of responses death can elicit, including joy.


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## Steve Wright

#5 calls for manly, authoritative playing of great rhetorical eloquence to properly put across the big-boned formal structure of the Sonata-Allegro first movement (*widely regarded as Shostakovich's finest sonata-based movement in any work*),
Is that so? I had better listen again, and more attentively. Which other movements from e.g. Shostakovich's symphonies and concertos would it be up against here?


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## Steve Wright

KenOC said:


> I have, pilfered from somewhere, a 26-page Word document that goes into quite a bit of detail concerning all 15 of DSCH's quartets. If you want it, PM me and I'll send you a share link.


Yes please Ken! Have PMd you. Thank you!


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## Steve Wright

Iota said:


> They're certainly two dominant silhouettes in the skyline. The Britten quartets also sit comfortably in their presence for me, wielding miraculous power with the barest of gestures at times, the first currently being my favourite, particularly in this incandescent performance:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I must return to Britten. I have them by the aptly-named Britten Quartet and I do remember being drawn in by them (esp #2 IIRC) - and that at a time when I was less susceptible to angular 20C chamber music than I am now!


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## EdwardBast

Steve Wright said:


> #5 calls for manly, authoritative playing of great rhetorical eloquence to properly put across the big-boned formal structure of the Sonata-Allegro first movement (*widely regarded as Shostakovich's finest sonata-based movement in any work*),
> Is that so? I had better listen again, and more attentively. Which other movements from e.g. Shostakovich's symphonies and concertos would it be up against here?


The first movement of the Tenth Symphony for one. Note that it is an example of the Russian/Eastern European variant of sonata form (Chopin Piano Sonatas 2 and 3, Tchaikovsky 4 and 6, Rachmaninoff 2, Bartok Concerto for Orchestra) in which the recap of the principal theme is dovetailed into the climax of the development.


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## CnC Bartok

EdwardBast said:


> Number 14 never struck me as difficult. I always found it relatively tame and welcoming.


Interesting; both yourself and Mandryka seem to see No.14 as "easier". Personally I do not, I find it much more enigmatic than its two neighbours; it's pretty clear what No.15 is "about" - true, it's hard-going, but relatively easy to grasp....


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## Dirge

Steve Wright said:


> «#5 calls for manly, authoritative playing of great rhetorical eloquence to properly put across the big-boned formal structure of the Sonata-Allegro first movement (*widely regarded as Shostakovich's finest sonata-based movement in any work*)....»
> 
> Is that so? I had better listen again, and more attentively. Which other movements from e.g. Shostakovich's symphonies and concertos would it be up against here?


In addition to the first movement of Symphony No. 10, mentioned by EdwardBast above, the first movement of Symphony No. 4 is worth a listen. It's sonata form is rather disguised and unorthodox-one commentator describes the movement as having "a hide and seek relationship with sonata form"-but it's no less viable for that: a brief exposition and a briefer recapitulation bookend a very lengthy and diverse development that seems free and fanciful but is surprisingly derivative; I particularly like the polka mocking the brutal first theme march and the frenetic fugato episode for strings (also based on the first theme … I think). As varied and interesting as it is, however, I don't find it as compellingly wrought and gripping as the first movement of String Quartet No. 5, with its struggling and conflicting themes providing much high-stress tension and drama-especially between the DSCH and "Galina" themes in the big climax. (The "Galina" theme is taken from Galina Ustvolskaya's then-unpublished Clarinet Trio of 1949-a fascinating work, by the way.)


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## Skilmarilion

EdwardBast said:


> [...]passacaglia of the 10th […]


Just recently discovered this, and it is absolutely unbelievable.


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## SONNET CLV

I've long wanted to hear the Shostakovich symphonies alternating with the string quartets in a numerical order binge listening session: Symphony 1, Quartet No. 1, Symphony 2, Quartet No. 2 … etc.

I have heard the symphonies in such order, and the quartets from 1 to 15 a couple of times over the years. Perhaps this current virus house-hugging session will provide me an opportunity to Shostakovich-out!

In any case, these 15 string quartets remain long-time favorites of mine, and I have several different sets in my collection, any of which I can enjoy on any particular day. The complete sets include those by the Manhattan Quartet, the St. Petersburg Quartet, the Rubio Quartet, and these:









































Great stuff!


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## KenOC

SONNET CLV said:


> I've long wanted to hear the Shostakovich symphonies alternating with the string quartets in a numerical order binge listening session: Symphony 1, Quartet No. 1, Symphony 2, Quartet No. 2 … etc.


 Interesting idea but it could be confusing. Shostakovich had written five symphonies before his first quartet!


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## erki

The set I have is played by Manhattan String Quartet on ESS:A.Y Recordings. I bought these some 20 years ago and it was my pick over some other for reason I can't remember.


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## EdwardBast

Skilmarilion said:


> Just recently discovered this, and it is absolutely unbelievable.


Especially as the Borodin does it. The whole quartet is excellent, the thematic returns in the finale poignantly tying the work together. During the most stressful passages of the finale, based on the brutal scherzo, the passacaglia theme returns like a deeply personal thought or inner strength sustained against the onslaught. In the end, the first movement theme returns, like a survivor emerging from the rubble. There's no victory or real optimism, but sometimes survival and peace alone can be sweet.


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## Torkelburger

The thing I love so much about Shostakovich is how musical it is. You may scoff at that, but it’s true. When I first started listening to him, the music seemed too simple and boring but then I learned you can’t turn it off at the start; you always have to “wait for it”, because it always comes. With Shosty, there is a reason and point to every note written, and each note has a purpose LATER ON. It has one in the middle and one in the end.

With Shosty, there is always, and I do mean always, “The Big Payoff” (notice the air-quotes). Some composers like myself can build up the music over a few bars. Some can do it over a few phrases. But not many like Shosty can do it over SEVERAL MINUTES (sometimes as much as twenty), and do so ever so artfully. Just about every piece. You realize “Oh, THAT’S why he wrote that note back then. THAT’S why the music went the way it did back then.” Etc. It’s truly a gift. To him and to us.


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