# Shostakovich - the best string quartets and the best recordings of them



## FPwtc

I have been going through a string quartet phase and I love my 2cd collection by the Borodin Quartet of Shostakovich's 2,3,7,8,12 quartets. I would like to hear more of his quartets and further interpretations of them.

What are considered his greatest quartets and some essential recordings of them?

Thanks!


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## Delicious Manager

For me, the greatest of Shostakovich's string quartets are Nos 3, 5, 8-10, 12 and 13. For many the recordings by the Borodin Quartet are matchless and I'd say you really can't go far wrong with their recordings. They recorded quartets 1-13 in 1967-71 (ie before the 14th and 15th quartets were written) and then (with a slightly different line-up) again (all 15 this time) in 1978-83. Either one is magnificent.


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## FPwtc

Thanks very much, I have bought a cd for 0.88p just now of the Borodin Quartet playing 1, 9 and 12! Will keep an eye out for 5 and 13 next thanks!


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## sbmonty

I have sets by the Fitzwilliam SQ and the Pacifica SQ. The Pacifica set also includes a number of string quartets by other Russian composers. Both are excellent in my opinion. I read Wendy Lesser's book "Music For Silenced Voices" while listening along to each of the 15. That was very enjoyable and revealing. For me at least.


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## Quartetfore

I have the Pacifica set, and I think that it is outstanding. I would add the Emerson quartets and the St. Petersburg Quartet recordings as very worthwhile
QF


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## TurnaboutVox

The Fitzwilliam Quartet's cycle is also outstanding, and very well recorded by Decca in the 1970's. They premiered the last three quartets in the UK and had personal connections with the composer.

As to favourite quartets, I especially like No. 3, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 but all, except maybe the first two, are more than worthwhile listening.


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## EdwardBast

Delicious Manager said:


> For me, the greatest of Shostakovich's string quartets are Nos 3, 5, 8-10, 12 and 13. For many the recordings by the Borodin Quartet are matchless and I'd say you really can't go far wrong with their recordings. They recorded quartets 1-13 in 1967-71 (ie before the 14th and 15th quartets were written) and then (with a slightly different line-up) again (all 15 this time) in 1978-83. Either one is magnificent.


The original Borodin added 14 and 15 and the complete set was reissued a few years later and is still available. Agree that their performances are great. No others I have heard compare.

My special favorites are 5, 10, and 4. But I like them all, except that 8 has never really appealed to me. I just find the biographical element, the quotations, and the signature motive annoying and distracting.


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## FPwtc

Delicious Manager said:


> For me, the greatest of Shostakovich's string quartets are Nos 3, 5, 8-10, 12 and 13. For many the recordings by the Borodin Quartet are matchless and I'd say you really can't go far wrong with their recordings. They recorded quartets 1-13 in 1967-71 (ie before the 14th and 15th quartets were written) and then (with a slightly different line-up) again (all 15 this time) in 1978-83. Either one is magnificent.


@Delicious Manager 
I looked at my double cd of 2,3,7,8,12 on Erato by the Borodin Quartet and it says they were recorded in 1990. Did they only record these specific quartets for this recording session or are there the rest on other cds? How would you say these 1990 recordings measure up against the 1967-71 and 1978-83 sessions you mentioned?

I think I will try the 1967-71 set next when I have the money as the 1978-83 is £40!


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## FPwtc

No love for 2? Maybe it is because it was the first I heard but I love it! Also I am a fan of prog rock, so when I heard this one I was like "oh that's where King Crimson got their sound".


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## EdwardBast

FPwtc said:


> @Delicious Manager
> I looked at my double cd of 2,3,7,8,12 on Erato by the Borodin Quartet and it says they were recorded in 1990. Did they only record these specific quartets for this recording session or are there the rest on other cds? How would you say these 1990 recordings measure up against the 1967-71 and 1978-83 sessions you mentioned?
> 
> I think I will try the 1967-71 set next when I have the money as the 1978-83 is £40!


If you can afford it, get Melodiya 74321 40711 2 - This contains all of the quartets with the original lineup. It also includes the Piano Quintet with Sviatoslav Richter and two pieces for string octet. The 1967-71 recordings don't have 14 and 15.


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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 to help prevent me from listening to those quartets that I don't like much-groups of works numbering more than nine tend to confuse me, so I need a list separating the sheep from the goats …

#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 serves me well enough …

#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 as the most different and interesting alternatives that I 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. 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 one that nails these aspects of the work.

#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. 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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## Vaneyes

FPwtc said:


> I have been going through a string quartet phase and I love my 2cd collection by the Borodin Quartet of Shostakovich's 2,3,7,8,12 quartets. I would like to hear more of his quartets and further interpretations of them.
> 
> What are considered his greatest quartets and some essential recordings of them?
> 
> Thanks!


I also have that double.Of course many of the Borodin Qt. purists thumb their noses at it. To hell with 'em, it's more than serviceable, and contains probably the five best.

That said, for sets I like Fitzwilliam (Decca), Shostakovich (Regis), and ESQ (DG). The helluva buy aka cheap is the Shostakovich. Cheers! :tiphat:


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## hpowders

Is the Emerson cycle any good?


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## KenOC

I have quite a few Shostakovich quartet cycles. They're all "good". I'd characterize the Emerson's cycle as perhaps a bit lightweight, but it has its virtues as well. My current favorite is the new cycle by the Brodsky Quartet, followed by the Pacifica. Tomorrow will be a new day.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...5_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=RR9HSWSVEXPKCT8PESSZ


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## FPwtc

Dirge said:


> I've listened to the Shostakovich quartets frequently enough over the decades to have worked out a list of favorites to help prevent me from listening to those quartets that I don't like much-groups of works numbering more than nine tend to confuse me, so I need a list separating the sheep from the goats …
> 
> #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 serves me well enough …
> 
> #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 as the most different and interesting alternatives that I 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. 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 one that nails these aspects of the work.
> 
> #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. 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.


@Dirge
Great post thanks very much!


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## FPwtc

Vaneyes said:


> I also have that double.Of course many of the Borodin Qt. purists thumb their noses at it. To hell with 'em, it's more than serviceable, and contains probably the five best.
> 
> That said, for sets I like Fitzwilliam (Decca), Shostakovich (Regis), and ESQ (DG). The helluva buy aka cheap is the Shostakovich. Cheers! :tiphat:


@Vaneyes
Thanks!!


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## Quartetfore

hpowders said:


> Is the Emerson cycle any good?


I think so. I have several of the recordings and enjoy them. The set was recorded live, but no audience noise.
QF


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## sbmonty

I thought I'd post this link. It's a great Shostakovich String Quartet reference site. Not sure if it's been posted before. Apologies if it has.

http://www.quartets.de/


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## KenOC

sbmonty said:


> I thought I'd post this link. It's a great Shostakovich String Quartet reference site. Not sure if it's been posted before. Apologies if it has.
> 
> http://www.quartets.de/


Heartily second this. The site is my go-to for learning about the DSCH quartets. I copied the text to a Word document so I could refer to it while listening.


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## starthrower

^^^
Will refer to that as well, thanks! I have my first cycle of quartets coming in the mail. And currently working my way through the symphonies.


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## Quartetfore

A very good site for the quartets is www.quartets.de


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## Omicron9

+1 on the Emerson cycle.


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## Quartetfore

There is an outstanding recording of the second recorded by the Takacs Quartet, and its mate on the CD is the Piano Quintet. I have never paid a great deal of attention to the 2nd quartet, but after hearing the Takacs play it to perfection my opinion has changed 100%. The performance of the Piano Quintet is very close to the classic Borodin recording.


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## EdwardBast

A footnote: My earlier posts were misinformed: I was confusing the second incarnation of the Borodin Quartet with the first — just in case anyone reads the whole thread.


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## Quartetfore

EdwardBast said:


> A footnote: My earlier posts were misinformed: I was confusing the second incarnation of the Borodin Quartet with the first - just in case anyone reads the whole thread.


I like the old borodin quartet much better than the new one. If you compare their Borodin 2nd String quartet, the old one is a much warmer version.


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## Barbebleu

Quartetfore said:


> A very good site for the quartets is www.quartets.de


This is a cracking site which has prompted me to start listening to the quartets again. I'm listening to the Shostakovich Quartet version which I have had for a few years but never got round to listening to it. I know, shame on me. It is rather good so far. I have two other sets - the Fitzwilliam and the Taneyev.


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## millionrainbows

I have the Emerson set, the Fitzwilliam set, and the Manhattan Quartet set on 6 CDs, and will soon complete my Borodin on EMI (separate CDS) (Melodiya 1990), and St. Petersburg Quartet on Hyperion.

Best recording quality: Emerson, St. Petersburg, Manhattan, Fitzwilliam

My favorite: #8 by the Emersons.


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## hpowders

The Emerson Quartet places precision over passion and I was deeply disappointed in their middle and late quartet performances. Virtuosic, yes, but feeling is missing.
The early quartets sound most convincing when played this way.

I will stay with the first Tokyo Quartet set on RCA for the most satisfyingly musical complete Beethoven quartet performances.


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## Quartetfore

I most of the Emerson, some of the St. Petersburg and and a number of the Pacifica Quartets recording. What makes the Pacifica valuable is besides being very good is a recording of one of Weinbergs outstanding works. I should add, a recording of the 9th by the Mandelring Quartet of Germany. It is a "Middle European"view of the work, but still valid.


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## Quartetfore

I should say I am writing about the Shostakovich quartets
I have the Emerson 'late' Beethoven set. The Takacs set for modern sound, but my overall favorite set is the complete Quartteto Italiano of the Beethoven works. as I once posted, I did hear the tokyo live several times, and for beauty of sound they were the best that I ever heard.


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## EdwardBast

Quartetfore said:


> I like the old borodin quartet much better than the new one. If you compare their Borodin 2nd String quartet, the old one is a much warmer version.


The second Borodin's complete set is still, IMO, far and away better than any other, with the possible exception of the first Borodin. The interpretations of these two incarnations are often quite similar.


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## Quartetfore

EdwardBast said:


> The second Borodin's complete set is still, IMO, far and away better than any other, with the possible exception of the first Borodin. The interpretations of these two incarnations are often quite similar.


I was just comparing the their old recording of the Borodin Quartet #2 and the new one. Not their Shostakovich cycle


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## Selby

I was imprinted on the Fitzwilliam set. I think it is the standard. It is also super cheap - like $10 used.

I'll be a double _detractor:_
1. _I don't care for the Emerson recordings._
2. No. 15 is his masterpiece.  Hands-down-by-a-mile my favorite of Shosty's intimate string quartets. Rarely does a piece exist in which it feels like the composer is attempting to reveal their soul. It is heartbreaking in it's beauty and it's sorrow.

The reissue of Quatuor Danel's cycle, I believe from 2005, looks pretty and is affordable at $25. Anyone have an opinion on this set?


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## Blancrocher

Selby said:


> 2. No. 15 is his masterpiece.  Hands-down-by-a-mile my favorite of Shosty's intimate string quartets. Rarely does a piece exist in which it feels like the composer is attempting to reveal their soul. It is heartbreaking in it's beauty and it's sorrow.


It's an amazing work. Fwiw, I just thought I'd mention that that string quartet makes repeated appearances in one of my favorite recent films, Leos Carax's Holy Motors, in case that might interest you (though you might want to check out a review first, since its not a traditional narrative).


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## Quartetfore

I have never paid to much attention to the early quartets, but after hearing the Takacs recording of the second i have been forced to change my mind about the second. This is an out standing work, the slow movement I think is one of the most beautiful that Shostakovich composed. The performance and the recording its self ranks with the best that I have heard. I think that a great recording can bring out the true quality of a work.
The other work on the disc is a "top of the line" performance of the Piano Quintet, that hold its own with the classic Borodin/Richter recording with much better sound.


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## znapschatz

Quartetfore said:


> I should say I am writing about the Shostakovich quartets
> I have the Emerson 'late' Beethoven set. The Takacs set for modern sound, but my overall favorite set is the complete Quartteto Italiano of the Beethoven works. *as I once posted, I did hear the tokyo live several times, and for beauty of sound they were the best that I ever heard.*


A wholehearted yes, although my favorite, and in my estimation, the definitive quartet was the Budapest. After they retired, the Tokyo occupied that category.


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## Quartetfore

znapschatz said:


> A wholehearted yes, although my favorite, and in my estimation, the definitive quartet was the Budapest. After they retired, the Tokyo occupied that category.


I hate to give away my age, but I heard the Budapest live in what must have been one of their last concerts. I was a freshman in college at the time, and it was the first Chamber concert that I ever attended. The only thing I remembered about it was that they played the Debussy Quartet.I wish time travel would be available, I would like to hear it now.


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## TxllxT

With the Fitzwilliam recordings my attention focuses on the instruments, the gorgeous bass spaciousness. I even got musical dreams from those lush luxurious Decca sounds. 

With the Borodin recordings the focus changes towards the drama, the narrative texture being exposed as bare as bare can be. No luxury here, just the nakedness of someone who knows that his and mine humanity is at peril. 

I'm very happy with both interpretations and happen to change my taste constantly.


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## EdwardBast

Quartetfore said:


> I have never paid to much attention to the early quartets, but after hearing the Takacs recording of the second i have been forced to change my mind about the second. This is an out standing work, the slow movement I think is one of the most beautiful that Shostakovich composed. The performance and the recording its self ranks with the best that I have heard. I think that a great recording can bring out the true quality of a work.
> The other work on the disc is a "top of the line" performance of the Piano Quintet, that hold its own with the classic Borodin/Richter recording with much better sound.


There are no early quartets. When Shostakovich wrote the first he was nearly 30 years old. He was 38 when he composed the second.


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## Quartetfore

EdwardBast said:


> There are no early quartets. When Shostakovich wrote the first he was nearly 30 years old. He was 38 when he composed the second.[/QUOTE
> True, what I mean is in the order of composition.


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## jihoo

Love Sq no.3,5,13.


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## Vox Gabrieli

No.1 Borodin
No. 2 Borodin
No. 3 Borodin
No. 4 Borodin
No. 5 Borodin
No. 6 Borodin.

I'll save you the eye strain - the rest is Borodin.


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## Vox Gabrieli

Selby;1219251
2. [SIZE=5 said:


> [/SIZE]No. 15 is his masterpiece.  Hands-down-by-a-mile my favorite of Shosty's intimate string quartets


Would you disagree if I claimed that Shotakovich's 24 Prelude and Fugues was his magnum opus? Although I would agree that No. 15 comes ridiculously close.


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## EdwardBast

Gabriel Ortiz said:


> Would you disagree if I claimed that Shotakovich's 24 Prelude and Fugues was his magnum opus? Although I would agree that No. 15 comes ridiculously close.


The 15th quartet is good. So are all of the others. I don't see any reason to rate it more highly than, for example, the 5th.

Shostakovich's Op. 87 is magnificent. I think it is the best solo piano music he wrote.  And some of the music he composed immediately after, the aforementioned 5th quartet, for example, probably owes much of its contrapuntal richness and fluency to the work he had done for Op. 87.


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## Sonata

I'm going to be working through the complete Emerson String Quartet set here pretty soon


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## stejo

The cycle from Fitzwilliam (Decca), and Borodin String Quartets (Chandos Historical) are all great, but I like the cycle with Mandelring quartet more and more, and beside the playing it has also a stunning recording in SACD.


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## Selby

Gabriel Ortiz said:


> Would you disagree if I claimed that Shotakovich's 24 Prelude and Fugues was his magnum opus? Although I would agree that No. 15 comes ridiculously close.


I would _never_ disagree with someone's subjective experience.


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## Vox Gabrieli

Selby said:


> I would _never_ disagree with someone's subjective experience.


What makes yours any less subjective?


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## Quartetfore

I have several of the Mandelring recordings, and like them very much. One thing I do find that less if I`m mistaken they present a "middle European" view of the music, rather than a "Russian" view. Perhaps its just my own perception. 
By the way the Mandelring has recorded some very fine Mendelssohn and Schubert.


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## Triplets

I just bought the Pacifica Quartet cycle, and after 1 listen I 'm very impressed


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## Quartetfore

Outstanding set,and as an extra bonus a quartet of Weinberg. and the Prokofiev #2 is very well done too.


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## Selby

Gabriel Ortiz said:


> What makes yours any less subjective?


Nothing. Nor was I implying it is. I apologize if you took the comment as somehow critical, it wasn't intended as such.


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## Triplets

I have been somewhat obsessed with the 11th recently. The Eighth used to be my favorite but it has suffered the fate of the truly great masterpieces, in that it has become overly familiar. 11 reminds me of Beethoven's Op.131 in it's explosive anxiety and it's succession of short, tightly argued movement that overwhelm with their cumulative force


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## Merl

Current favourite recordings are by the Fitzwilliam Quartet but that will change again, soon.


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## Tallisman

The Emersons do a good job


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