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Shostakovich & Myaskovsky: String Quartets / Pacifica Quartet
Cedille

Shostakovich & Myaskovsky: String Quartets / Pacifica Quartet

$19.99 Only 3 left

Details

Composer
SHOSTAKOVICH MIASKOVSKY
Artist
PACIFICA QUARTET
Format
CD
Label
Cedille
Released
Sep 27, 2011
Catalog #
CDR 127
UPC
735131912723

About

This is the first installment in the Pacifica Quartet's highly anticipated, four-volume CD survey of the complete Shostakovich string quartets: The Soviet Experience: String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich and his Contemporaries. The Soviet Experience is the first Shostakovich quartet cycle to include works by other important composers of the Soviet era, adding variety and perspective to the listening experience. This superbly performed series of audiophile recordings, produced and engineered by multiple Grammy Award winner Judith Sherman, will appeal to everyone interested in great Russian music of the 20th century. It's also a great value: each two-CD installment is priced as a single CD.

REVIEW:

Cedille certainly produces some of the smartest “concept” albums in the classical music business today, because the concept always seems to work musically. Now the Pacifica Quartet is one of the best chamber ensembles out there, as its Mendelssohn recordings for this same label attest. Even so, there’s no dearth of fine Shostakovich cycles, from the Borodin Quartet to the Emerson. These performances, every bit as fine as those, would be excellent by themselves, but they do risk getting lost in the discographic shuffle. So it was an inspired idea to pair them in this series with other important works in the same medium by Shostakovich’s contemporaries. I’m not sure if this adds up to a “Soviet Experience”, whatever that is, but it does make for some great listening.

The four Shostakovich quartets offered here constitute the heart of the cycle, culminating in the incredibly popular (amazing because musically it’s very sad) Eighth Quartet. In this latter work, the Pacifica Quartet finds a perfect balance between technical polish and raw intensity, nowhere more so than in the ferocious second movement. In Quartet No. 5, with its complex outer movements, the players pace the music with an unerring feeling for tension and relaxation. Even the slender Seventh, Shostakovich’s shortest quartet, has an unusual measure of cogency and expressive depth.

Miaskovsky’s Thirteenth Quartet, his last, is a splendid work: conservative to be sure, but so beautifully written. The scherzo, marked “Presto fantastico”, displays a vast quantity of color and texture, but then the entire work belies the notion that the quartet medium tends toward the monochrome. The thematic invention is also surprisingly arresting for this composer; some of the symphonies seem bland in comparison. Once again, it would be difficult to imagine a finer performance, and the engineering allows the players’ attractive sonority and well-balanced ensemble work to speak with total naturalness. A great start to a very promising series.

-- ClassicToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Tracklist 19 tracks

  1. Disc 1
  2. 1 I. Allegretto non troppo 11:31
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Allegretto non troppo
    Duration
    11:31
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  3. 2 II. Andante 09:26
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Andante
    Duration
    09:26
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  4. 3 III. Moderato - Allegretto 10:47
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Moderato - Allegretto
    Duration
    10:47
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  5. 4 I. Allegretto 07:07
    Track
    4
    Title
    I. Allegretto
    Duration
    07:07
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  6. 5 II. Moderato con moto 05:42
    Track
    5
    Title
    II. Moderato con moto
    Duration
    05:42
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  7. 6 III. Lento 05:24
    Track
    6
    Title
    III. Lento
    Duration
    05:24
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  8. 7 IV. Lento - Allegretto - Andante 07:18
    Track
    7
    Title
    IV. Lento - Allegretto - Andante
    Duration
    07:18
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  9. Disc 2
  10. 1 I. Allegretto 03:28
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Allegretto
    Duration
    03:28
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  11. 2 II. Lento 03:16
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Lento
    Duration
    03:16
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  12. 3 III. Allegro - Allegretto 05:27
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Allegro - Allegretto
    Duration
    05:27
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  13. 4 I. Largo 05:08
    Track
    4
    Title
    I. Largo
    Duration
    05:08
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  14. 5 II. Allegro molto 02:42
    Track
    5
    Title
    II. Allegro molto
    Duration
    02:42
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  15. 6 III. Allegretto 04:33
    Track
    6
    Title
    III. Allegretto
    Duration
    04:33
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  16. 7 IV. Largo 05:45
    Track
    7
    Title
    IV. Largo
    Duration
    05:45
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  17. 8 V. Largo 03:46
    Track
    8
    Title
    V. Largo
    Duration
    03:46
    Composer
    Dmitri Shostakovich
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  18. 9 I. Moderato 07:57
    Track
    9
    Title
    I. Moderato
    Duration
    07:57
    Composer
    Nikolay Yakovlevich Myaskovsky
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  19. 10 II. Presto fantastico 05:54
    Track
    10
    Title
    II. Presto fantastico
    Duration
    05:54
    Composer
    Nikolay Yakovlevich Myaskovsky
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  20. 11 III. Andante con moto e molto cantabile 06:47
    Track
    11
    Title
    III. Andante con moto e molto cantabile
    Duration
    06:47
    Composer
    Nikolay Yakovlevich Myaskovsky
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet
  21. 12 IV. Molto vivo, energico 04:47
    Track
    12
    Title
    IV. Molto vivo, energico
    Duration
    04:47
    Composer
    Nikolay Yakovlevich Myaskovsky
    Ensemble
    Pacifica Quartet