Shostakovich String Quartet No. 10

Chicago-based Cedille label's ambitious "The Soviet Experience" series continues with this set of early Shostakovich string quartets from the 15 years surrounding World War II, along with one unusual Prokofiev quartet of the same period. In addition to reflecting the situations in which he lived, Shostakovich's quartets deal with a different kind of legacy as well: the Beethovenian tradition of the string quartet as it developed through the 19th century and became an outlet for inward emotion refined into well-crafted melody and counterpoint.

If you like your Shostakovich quartets big, brawny, and a bit brutal, you'll like the Emerson Quartet's Shostakovich quartets. The Allegros are muscular, with sharp attacks, strong sforzandos, and relentless rhythms. The Passacaglias are powerful, with massive sonorities, monumental structures, and inexorable tempos. And the Allegrettos are aggressive, with ironic accents, sarcastic tones, and mordent tempos.

A Brilliant Classics debut for one of today’s most accomplished Italian string quartets, in 20th-century masterpieces which make a compelling introduction to the troubled private world of Shostakovich’s chamber music.

The Pacifica Quartet address the more intimate side of Dimitri Shostakovich, particularly his quartets composed in the fateful years in the Soviet Union, 1952-1960. In 1948, Shostakovich, along with Prokofiev and Miaskovsky, had been excoriated as “formalists” incapable of direct communication with “the people.” Shostakovich, however, employed the string quartet medium as means of personal expression relatively unhampered by “political correctness.”……

Gary Lemco @ Audiophile Audition