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DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH The Complete String Quartets - Vol. 1: String Quartet No. 6 (1956) [27.16] String Quartet No. 7 (1960) [13.44] String Quartet No. 10 (1964) [27.07]  Sorrel Quartet CHANDOS CHAN 9741 [68.24]

 


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The Sorrels are a young all-female quartet early in their recording career. They were founded in 1987. They have a well-received Britten quartet disc to their credit and this is also on Chandos.

The present disc makes a promising overture to their quartet cycle. It is to their credit (and that of Chandos) that they are not launching the n'th Mozart or Schubert cycle. Although Shostakovich cycles are not exactly rare they are still seen as outside the safe middle ground.

Their advocacy reflects a big-boned intensity which is evidenced in the 3rd movement of No. 6. I am quite sure that the desperation of this music of howling tocsins must have benefited from the coaching the young quartet received from Rostislav Dubinsky. Dubinsky has been a staple of the Chandos catalogue for some years now and as a founder member of the Borodin Quartet his influence must be taken as authoritative. Intensity and concentration are here in plenty.

The Sixth Quartet's urbane Viennese and classical manner (written as a relaxation after the very different rigours of the Fifth Symphony) is filtered through the composer's usual harsh Russian winter clouds. Such is the lightness though that on occasions Shostakovich seems to reach back to Prokofiev's Classical Symphony.

Finally we come to Quartet No. 10 (dedicated to an unjustly neglected composer - Moshei Vainberg). This explores the elusive dream territory of Shostakovich's coolly enigmatic second violin concerto. The Adagio is rather approachable catching the shadows and light of some Russian monastery. Certainly it has a sense of being at emotional ease. The Quartet comes across in this music as musical actors.

The drama is rounded off in a rather fine disc (by a finale whose rhythmic life struts gamely from the same source as the finale of Shostakovich's second glorious piano concerto. Good notes by Eric Roseberry.

Recording excellent. Recommended.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

Reviewer

Peter Grahame Woolf



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