eShop USA > Music > Shostakovich: The String Quartets
Shostakovich: The String Quartets
from: Decca
List Price: $47.98Our Price: $29.97 You Save: $18.01 (38%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028945577623
Label: Decca
Manufacturer: Decca
MPN: 455776
Number Of Discs: 6
Publisher: Decca
Release Date: February 10, 1998
Studio: Decca
Related Items: Featured Listmania!
Editorial Review:
The Fitzwilliam Quartet is English by birth but shows a lot of Russian soul in these works, which were recorded in consultation with the composer. Their technique is flawless, their immersion in the music total, their interaction with one another and with the music spontaneous and intense. Priced competitively with the Borodin Quartet, they do not have any added attraction to match the Piano Quintet in that set, but this close-up stereo recording is significantly better. Highlights of the set include the relaxed, folk-flavored No. 1; the tense, autobiographical No. 8, which recalls the terrors of World War II, quotes a lot of Shostakovich's earlier works, and mourns for the "victims of fascism and war"; the contrasts of quiet beauty and fierce intensity in No. 10; and the bold structure of No. 15, Shostakovich's last quartet, in which he looks at death, steadily and without blinking. --Joe McLellan
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Opportunity Waits for No Hominid! Do it! Buy!
Shostakovich's string quartets are as much the supreme masterworks of 20th Century music as Beethoven's were of the classical period. I hardly dare say more about them; they are profound on every level, and like Beethoven's, they grow more profound with every listening.
Shostakovich, in a sense, discovered the Fitzwilliam String Quartet when its members were undergrads at Cambridge. He entrusted the first western performances of his last three quartets to them for premiere, and they ... Read More
Rating:  - So-so
The first ones are warm and human (as much so as anything written since the 19th century ever gets except Rachmaninov or Sibelius). But as they progress, they become more dissonant and strident and unpleasant. Well-performed. I suppose all editions of them are. I doubt I'll listen to them much. But I'll haul them out occasionally and listen until I can't take it any more. The price was right. A bargain.
Rating:  - Hum a little Shostakovich
I enjoyed these performances and would have purchased this album, but there is a persistent hum on some of these CDs and, once noticed, it became impossible for me not to notice it.
Rating: - Not just a bargain--a must-have
There are perhaps several complete Shostakovich cycles one would like to own for these amazing pieces, and this is one of them. Not every single quartet is perfect, but that is to be expected. What these players excel in is an emotional depth that is perhaps left behind in the sheer brilliance of the Emerson SQ's playing.
Their tempi are excellent: fast when necessary, and painfully slow where Shostakovich asks for it. Perhaps my favorite point of their playing is the articulation, which ... Read More
Rating: - lusterless
The only qualm I have with this set is that the String Quartet No. 9 is a lusterless endeavor when compared to other renditions. The intensity and suffering just isnt there.
Related Categories:
Recently viewed PC Hardware:
Sony VAIO VGN-FE855E/H 15.4" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5500, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, DVD¿RW Drive, Vista Premium)
|
IBM ThinkPad X40 2371 - Pentium M 738 1.4 GHz - 12.1" TFT ( 2371E8U )
|
ViewSonic VX922 19-inch LCD Monitor
|
Sony VAIO VGN-C220E/H 13.3" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66 GHz Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD RW Drive, Vista Premium)
|
Sony VAIO PCV-RS610 Desktop PC (2.8 GHz Pentium 4 (Hyper-Threading), 512 MB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD Drives)
|
| |
 |
