Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov

As stock in Bartók's string quartets dropped in the West, stock in Shostakovich's string quartets rose. But increasing interest in the Soviet composer's 15 quartets failed to spark a similar interest in the 13 quartets by fellow Soviet composer Nikolay Myaskovsky. In the digital age, there has so far been only one recording of the complete cycle, the Taneyev Quartet's from the early '80s. Previously released in the West by Russian Disc in the '90s …..

The second volume of Northern Flowers' reissues of Russian Disc's series of recordings by the Taneyev Quartet of Nikolay Myaskovsky's 13 String Quartets intelligently and generously couples the composer's Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth works in the form. (Russian Disc had oddly and inexplicably coupled the Fourth with the First, the Fifth with the Third and the Sixth with the Second and the Tenth.) As in previous recordings, the Taneyev Quartet throws itself fully into the music. Though the tone is wiry, the sonorities lean, and the intonation occasionally shaky, the players are wholly committed. The music sounds ……

James Leonard @ AllMusic.com