# Shostakovich Quartets



## Quartetfore (May 19, 2010)

If you like or are interested in learning about them, go to the web site of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Find "Shostakovich Quartets Watch and Listen" I am sure you will enjoy it.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Looks great. I'll start watching today.


----------



## MrCello (Nov 25, 2011)

Listening to the 8th as I stumbled upon this thread!


----------



## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

thanks quartetfore, will watch it later as Shostakovich's cycle are surely need some explaination on it. the youtube links, (I stumbled some minutes looking for the links)

http://www.youtube.com/user/chambermusicsociety/videos?query=shostakovich


----------



## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Good timing on this information! I just ordered up some of his string quartets. He's a pretty new composer to me, I'm sure this will be helpful. Thanks :cheers:


----------



## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Quartetfore said:


> If you like or are interested in learning about them, go to the web site of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Find "Shostakovich Quartets Watch and Listen" I am sure you will enjoy it.


Thanks so much for the heads-up on this lecture series. I've been scanning his comments on the quartets that are my current focus, namely, #2, #3, and #4. Overall, excellent, both their biographical context and some musicological analysis (I appreciate the graphics in his presentation).

I gather that these lectures are warm-ups for performances by the Jerusalem Quartet. What are, for you, the best performances of the Shostakovich quartets?

I have three sets, the 2nd cycle of the Borodin Quartet, the Fitzwilliam Quartet, and now the first three volumes of the Pacifica Quartet. The Pacifica has become a favorite because it matches the others in quality of performance and exceeds them in recording quality. They use an intriguing device of joining each volume with one quartet from one Shostakovich's contemporaries. They entitled "The Soviet Experience": 
Vol. 1 has Shostakovich's Quartets #5-8, with Nikolai Miaskovsky's Quartet #13.
Vol. 2 has Shostakovich's Quartets #1-4, with Prokofiev's Quartet #2 (a personal favorite of mine)
Vol. 3 has Shostakovich's Quartets #9-12, with Weinberg's Quartet #6.


----------



## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Sonata said:


> Good timing on this information! I just ordered up some of his string quartets. He's a pretty new composer to me, I'm sure this will be helpful. Thanks :cheers:


Downloads or CDs, and whom?


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I'm concentrating on quartets 5, 7, and 9 because they're on one disc. Don't overlook the St. Petersburg Quartet, all Russian and recorded in St. Petesburg, on Hyperion. I have Emerson and Fitzwilliam as well, and I love all my "children" for different reasons.
I did a recent blog on Shostakovich, which might interest some here. It's on page 1 of my blogs, The Octatonic Scale and Shostakovich 
I really like the "humanity" of Shostakovich; he seemed like a genuinely gentle, likeable man.

Thanks for the "Soviet Experience" images. I will put those on my wish list.


----------



## Quartetfore (May 19, 2010)

Alypuis, I am glad that you and every else is enjoying the Chamber Music Societies Shostakovich Site.
In this music I don`t think that there can ever be a "best" recording, though for a modern cycle I like the St Petersburg Quartet. But then again I have not heard them all. A few weeks ago I downloaded the Mandelring Quartets 9th. This is the first time that I have heard then in a non-Romantic Era work. Its a non-Russian version, and by that I mean less inflected and without contrasts that we often hear. I think that it is valid way of playing the music, and very interesting
I plan to download a Pacifica recording in the near future as I have read some very good things about their Shostakovich.
QF.


----------

