Shostakovich Anderszewski Belcea

Belcea Quartet, Piotr Anderszewski - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 & Piano Quintet

Belcea Quartet, Piotr Anderszewski - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 & Piano Quintet (2018)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 01:09:07 | 305 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Alpha | Catalog: ALPHA 360

It tends to be Russian performers who capture the dark, emotional undercurrents of Shostakovich's music, but few chamber groups have ever done it as well as the Belcea Quartet, a London-based group of central and eastern European players. Neither the Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57, nor the String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73, is a commonly played work, but taken together, in the Belcea's more-than-capable hands, they have a powerful impact.
Belcea Quartet & Piotr Anderszewski - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 & Piano Quintet (2018) [Official Digital Download]

Belcea Quartet & Piotr Anderszewski - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 & Piano Quintet (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44.1 kHz | Time - 69:07 minutes | 622 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Digital Booklet

Formed in 1994 at the Royal College of Music in London, the Belcea Quartet has recorded the complete string quartets of Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók and Britten. For this new Alpha release it has chosen two works by one of the leading composers of twentieth-century chamber music, Dmitri Shostakovich. The Quartet no.3, of historic importance, was initially censured by the Soviet regime, then revised by Shostakovich for its first performance in 1946; the refined playing of the Belcea Quartet brings out all its contours.
Belcea Quartet & Piotr Anderszewski - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 & Piano Quintet (2018)

Belcea Quartet & Piotr Anderszewski - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 & Piano Quintet (2018)
WEB FLAC (tracks) | 01:09:13 | 271 Mb
Classical | Label: Alpha Classics, Outhere Music France

Piotr Anderszewski and the Belcea Quartet make superb partners in one of Shostakovich’s most performed chamber works. They present the powerful and highly approachable Piano Quintet with playing of colossal tensile strength, a tightly focused sound and yet with a willingness to respond to the work’s undeniable lyricism. The work’s rigour is striking when performed with this kind of intensity and concentration. The Third Quartet (1946) remains one of Shostakovich’s finest—and one of his favourites, perhaps because it responds so powerfully to the combustible events of the time. The Belceas capture its sardonic, sometimes violent, mood to perfection.