Danel

With their recording of Dmitri Shostakovich’s complete string quartets, the Quatuor Danel has crafted an impressive opus that delves into the composer’s life with deep musical understanding and establishes unparalleled standards in interpreting his chamber music. These new live recordings, stemming from their 2022 residency at the Mendelssohn Hall of the Gewandhaus Leipzig, capture the full spectrum of emotions embedded in Shostakovich’s quartet cycle, from the ethereal to the profound, from the whimsical to the contemplative.

With their recording of Dmitri Shostakovich’s complete string quartets, the Quatuor Danel has crafted an impressive opus that delves into the composer’s life with deep musical understanding and establishes unparalleled standards in interpreting his chamber music. These new live recordings, stemming from their 2022 residency at the Mendelssohn Hall of the Gewandhaus Leipzig, capture the full spectrum of emotions embedded in Shostakovich’s quartet cycle, from the ethereal to the profound, from the whimsical to the contemplative.

The joint history of former string quartet violinist Virpi Räisänen and the Danel Quartet began nearly thirty years ago when the young chamber musicians met at the master class of the legendary Borodin Quartet at the Britten-Pears School in England.

The joint history of former string quartet violinist Virpi Räisänen and the Danel Quartet began nearly thirty years ago when the young chamber musicians met at the master class of the legendary Borodin Quartet at the Britten-Pears School in England.

With their recording of Dmitri Shostakovich's complete string quartets, the Quatuor Danel has crafted an impressive opus that delves into the composer's life with deep musical understanding and establishes unparalleled standards in interpreting his chamber music. These new live recordings, stemming from their 2022 residency at the Mendelssohn Hall of the Gewandhaus Leipzig, capture the full spectrum of emotions embedded in Shostakovich’s quartet cycle, from the ethereal to the profound, from the whimsical to the contemplative. With their interpretation of this extraordinary cycle, the Quatuor Danel has forged a distinctive Shostakovich style that cannot be found in any other quartet. Primarius Marc Danel reflects on the resonance with the audience in Leipzig, describing it as nothing short of sensational. “I hope the recordings will also convey the collective spirit we permanently felt during our residency in the Mendelssohn Hall."

The recordings, made by Bavarian Radio between 2001 and 2005, are, if anything, classier still, with equally classy annotations by Shostakovich scholars Frans Lemaire and David Fanning.
Since fact and speculation are for once carefully defined, you won't see here the incautious revisionism of so much Shostakovich commentary.

Well known for the intensity and profundity of its interpretations, the Quatuor Danel has made a name for itself on the international classical scene (winning such awards as the Diapason d’Or, Choc du Monde de la Musique, and CD of the Month in BBC Music Magazine) in the great cycles that form the basis of the quartet literature, from Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert to Weinberg. Since Russian composers occupy a key position in the Danels’ repertory, it was logical for them to champion the quartets of Shostakovich by recording them complete in 2005. Today Alpha Classics reissues this boxed set, which is among the reference recordings of the composer’s works.