Shostakovich String Quartets

[Nick Armstrong]

I have found a couple of previous threads that should be of interest.

PS: So did our friendly host, who has now merged them, making this post superfluous.

[Petrushka]

I found three previous threads, and have combined them all. I suggest a read from the top (January 2011!) for lots of interesting comments about the pieces and recordings (plus statutory tangents such as whisky etc )

Thanks. The search facility on here was of no help but was sure there was something. Time for a good read!

[MickyD]

I picked up the 27 CD Brilliant Classics box of Shostakovich works for an incredibly low price some years ago. In this, the string quartets are played by the Rubio Quartet. How do you rate their performances in comparison to other more well-known ensembles?

[Nick Armstrong]

Thanks. The search facility on here was of no help but was sure there was something.

I just used the ‘Advanced Search’ button above, entered “Shostakovich Quartets” and selected ‘search thread titles’ ... It should work for all, I think

[LMcD]

I picked up the 27 CD Brilliant Classics box of Shostakovich works for an incredibly low price some years ago. In this, the string quartets are played by the Rubio Quartet. How do you rate their performances in comparison to other more well-known ensembles?

The Rubio's Shostakovich string quartets are currently available on 5 CDs for just under £15 from Presto Classical - a good investment for anybody wishing to explore these works, I would think!

[Edgy 2]

I can't find a thread on these but feel sure there must have been one at some time.

I've had the Chandos box of the original Borodin Quartet playing Quartets 1 - 13 for some time but have only recently got properly stuck into it. I very recently supplemented the set with the later Borodin readings on EMI of the missing final two quartets thus giving me the full set and am greatly enjoying listening by taking them in order. Currently at the 5th which is a bleak and unsettling work but one I found as impressive and moving as anything in the symphonies.

Others will know them better than I do and wonder how these recordings are rated? They sound pretty well definitive to me but interested to know if any others are preferred. What, for instance, is the Decca set of the Borodins?

I have that box Pet, great though it is nowadays I tend to listen more to the Pacifica Qt and the Eder Qt on Naxos, all brilliant IMVHO.

A couple of sites from our very own reference library and probably in this thread somewhere, may be of interest

http://www.quartets.de/

https://www.earsense.org/search/?q=shostakovich

[Petrushka]

I have that box Pet, great though it is nowadays I tend to listen more to the Pacifica Qt and the Eder Qt on Naxos, all brilliant IMVHO.

A couple of sites from our very own reference library and probably in this thread somewhere, may be of interest

http://www.quartets.de/

https://www.earsense.org/search/?q=shostakovich

Thanks for the links, especially the first one, which I see appear earlier in the thread. I'd played one or two of the quartets before but am now systematically going through them and the links look so useful I might even start again. It was playing the 5th this morning that strongly caught my attention and want to really get to know the whole set properly.

[Richard Barrett]

It's a long time since I listened to them (I have the Fitzwilliam set and I can't imagine any of the other currently available ones superseding it in my affections, although I certainly can imagine some future as yet unheard recording doing so) and I've always tended to concentrate on the last three to the exclusion of most of the others, which aren't essential to me in the way that Bartók, Janáček, Ligeti, Feldman and Nono are (to name a few examples). 13-15 seem to me much more original in conception and execution and in their unique expressive worlds than their predecessors.