The Soviet Experience
String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich and his
Contemporaries
Pacifica Quartet (Simin Ganatra (violin); Sibbi Bernhardsson (violin);
Masumi Per Rostad (viola); Brandon Vamos (cello))
rec. 2010-13, Foellinger Great Hall, Krannert Center, University of
Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and Auer Hall, University of Indiana,
Bloomington, USA.
CEDILLE BOX 1003 [8 CDs: 480:10]
In his splendid book "Defining Russia Musically" Richard Taruskin says, in
a insightful and provocative chapter on Shostakovich: "The fact is, no-one
owns the meaning of this music, which has always supported (nay invited: nay
compelled) multiple opportunistic and contradictory readings, and no-one can
ever own it."
One of those multiple readings has now seemingly become the prevailing
orthodoxy in the case of the string quartets, namely that these works
contain coded statements of protest against Soviet oppression, including
that from which the composer himself suffered. This orthodoxy derives less
from Shostakovich himself - who had good reason to stay tight-lipped - than
from two other sources: first, the music's internal evidence, such as the
use of Shostakovich's personal musical motto DSCH and Jewish musical
reference in the 8th quartet; and second, the personal testimony
from those first interpreters who knew him, such as the members of the
Beethoven and Borodin string quartets that first recorded this music.
This political and personal hinterland has bequeathed an inheritance of
latent meaning to this cycle that has influenced our judgment of its
interpreters. The superb and widely admired version by the Emerson Quartet
had a few doubters for whom the interpretation was not 'Russian enough'
(whatever that meant), or which did not slavishly follow the precedents set
by those first Russian interpreters. Perhaps as even more versions
accumulate on disc they will be divided into 'Soviet' and 'post-Soviet'
approaches, the way lieder singers were once divided into 'interventionist'
and 'non-interventionist'. That will not mean that only Russians will have
access to the 'Soviet' style of the first recordings, for this cycle by the
American Pacifica Quartet has many of the same attributes. They performed
the cycle as part of Chicago's "The Soviet Art Experience" Festival in
2010-11 - though those here are all studio recordings. The initial two-disc
issues each had a Soviet propaganda poster as cover art and the whole series
is called 'The Soviet Experience'. Furthermore each issue added a quartet by
another Soviet composer, so this cycle explores and exploits the hinterland
of the works themselves more than any other.
This Shostakovich quartet cycle received glowing opinions everywhere as it
unfolded, including here on MusicWeb International. It has now been
assembled into a box, or rather a cardboard sleeve to hold the four double
jewel cases of the original releases. The extensive and excellent original
notes by such authorities as William Hussey, Gerard McBurney, David Fanning
and Elizabeth Wilson are all retained. So too is the evocative artwork and
those additional four Soviet quartets by Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Weinberg and
Schnittke. Unfortunately also retained is the numbered sequence of the
releases, so, as you can see from the listings above, the first volume had
quartets 5-8 (presumably in order to launch with the most popular, the 8th),
and the second volume quartets 1-4. Thereafter the quartets are in their
numbered order on the CDs - except that its length places No. 3 on disc two
of volume 2, after quartets numbers 1, 2 and 4 which fill disc one. However
the contents list on the rear of the cardboard sleeve makes it quite easy to
locate any specific quartet.
Since the earlier volumes have been reviewed here already, I shall focus
on the last volume, with quartets number 13, 14 and 15, before offering a
general assessment and some comparisons. In the first of these, number 13,
timing comparison show a recent 19-20 minute consensus. Extending a little
Dominy Clements's table of comparison given in his MWI review of the
Razumovsky cycle, we have Pacifica 19:15, Emerson 19:08, Rubio 20:44 and
Razumovsky 19:53. Go further back though and the Beethoven Quartet take
18:16 and the Borodin (first cycle) 18:38. This slightly greater sense of
the flow is to the work's advantage - except for the Taneyev Quartet
example, another group close to the composer, whose amazing 15:22 in the
13th quartet makes it almost a different work. This more than
five minute difference in a work about 20 minutes long at most is the one
extreme example in recordings of the cycle. Version timings are rarely that
different - testimony to the fact that within a short time after its
completion the cycle had a strong performing tradition. This is in part
because Shostakovich worked closely with two quartets (the Beethovens and
Borodins) who went on to record the cycle - plus his contact with the
Taneyevs and the Fitzwilliam Quartet later on. Within their chosen tempo,
the Pacifica are utterly convincing in number 13, which has here the
relentless intensity that is the main hallmark perhaps of the 'Soviet'
performing style. Certainly they yield little in authority to the Beethoven
Quartet, whose members are the dedicatees of quartets 11-14.
With the 14th quartet we reach the last of those dedications,
to the cellist, who is given the opening melody of an enchantingly whimsical
movement. It start off at least in F sharp major, a tricky key for string
players, but it doesn't sound that way here for the Pacifica. They sound as
if complete mastery of the notes is a mere starting point for them, as once
again they sound totally inside the music even as it visits quite different
moods in swift succession. In the central slow movement, they are
unflinching in the face of such despairingly poignant music.
I recall reading about No.15, then the composer's latest quartet, long
before I heard it. I felt that despite the Haydn precedent in his 'Seven
Last Words from the Cross' a succession of slow movements for the limited
colours and dynamic range of a string quartet would be an impossible
compositional challenge, even for such a genius. I remarked to a Russian
colleague at a conference in Cold War Budapest that if it really is
35' long with six movements all marked adagio it could be
like six years in the Gulag. He rightly scorned my frivolity as he knew
people who had suffered just that. It is now regarded as the fitting climax
to a great series of works, and as a requiem for the composer himself. He
was well aware of the challenge to players and to listeners, but unbending
in his demands and told the first performers "play it so that flies
drop dead in mid-air, and the audience starts leaving from sheer
boredom."
In fact the 15th is compelling in any version I have heard,
this one not least. It is though a work where a live performance pays
dividends, as the players have to raise the intensity of communication to
hold the audience gripped - so that they do not 'leave from boredom'. The
Emersons' live performance has a slight edge here, I suspect for that very
reason. The listener dare not breathe, let alone leave, even as the flies
drop all around him. Nonetheless, the Pacifica Quartet is very fine also,
touchingly meditative and fabulously precise.
The final CD ends with the third quartet of Alfred Schnittke, which is a
perfect choice in several ways. It is approachable in idiom, with a
beguiling opening that soon develops tensions, and that is not the only
parallel with Shostakovich. As the notes outline, the arch form
slow-fast-slow recalls the latter's quartets 13 and 14, and there is even a
distorted version of the DSCH motif. The Pacifica are as convincing in this
superb work as in everything else, and at least the equal of the fine
version from the Quatuor Molinari on Atma Classique, which has all four
Schnittke quartets.
The earlier Shostakovich quartets show all the same qualities, precision
in individual parts and tightness in ensemble, playing at once idiomatic and
intense. That this is regarded now as a leading version comes as no surprise
since while one might prefer another version in a particular quartet, for
there is no weak performance here and the general standard is so high. The
four additional quartets from other Soviet era composers are far more than
makeweights, though their ultimate effect, it must be said, is to confirm
Shostakovich's absolute pre-eminence. The sound is good throughout, a little
close and dry but that often aids the audibility of inner or secondary
parts. It is never aggressive, except when the music requires ferocious
outbursts - which is not infrequently. I had no difficulty listening for
quite long stretches of time - though that is a tribute to the music-making
as much as to the engineering.
We are surfeited with fine cycles of these great works now, and this is
one of them ... and surrently superb value for money. The Emerson Quartet
still holds an honoured place also among more recent versions, and it is
hard to choose between these two. Ideally a collector should have one of the
earliest ones also. We can't really argue with the centrality of the
Beethoven Quartet, who gave the premieres of numbers 2-14, having worked on
them with the composer. That set is thus an essential adjunct to the scores
as much as a recording of them. Later on, when the Beethoven no longer
played quite so well, Shostakovich confessed to a preference for the Borodin
Quartet, and the original members of that ensemble left recordings - though
of numbers 1-13 only - on Chandos, whose notes are uncharacteristically unhelpful in
delineating their exact provenance however. The full cycle is available from
the Borodin's later line-up, in better sound and hardly less essential
interpretations. It keeps coming and going in the catalogue, but is
currently in a low-priced box from Melodiya.
As Taruskin says above, no-one can own the meaning of this music, not even
its first performers. What might a truly post-Soviet reading sound like, one
where one is not put in mind of the historical context, but is simply
absorbed by the notes, the music as music? For that I would currently turn
to the Mandelring Quartet's cycle on Audite, which has performances which somehow seem to
have shed the Soviet interpretative burden, but still sound idiomatic.
Perhaps the emotional temperature is correspondingly lower, but the music
can and does survive that. They also have the best sound of any cycle, with
an agreeable bloom around a fine SACD recording - and the performances are
well worthy of such an audio examination. Note that while Audite have now
boxed the five discs at a much lower price, that compilation is only of CDs
in 2-channel sound.
Let me return briefly to Taruskin on Shostakovich for a final thought:
"Definitive reading, especially biographical reading, locks the music in the
past. Better let it remain supple, adaptable, ready to serve the future's
needs. The significance of Dmitriy Dmitriyevich Shostakovich in and for the
history of twentieth century music is immense, possibly unparalleled, and
above all, continuing." Continuing indeed, for now we learn that the next
generation of the Borodin line-up has just embarked on another recorded
cycle, as has the young Carducci quartet - reviews of both to follow. They
will have to be quite exceptional to match the Pacifica's achievement
here.
Roy Westbrook
Previous reviews: Volume 1 ~ Volume 2 ~ Volume 3
Review index: Shostakovich ~
Miaskovsky ~
Weinberg
Contents
Volume I [57:35+60:05]
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
String Quartet No. 5 in B flat major, Op. 92 (1952) [31:45]
String Quartet No. 6 in G major, Op. 101 (1956) [25:38]
String Quartet No. 7 in F sharp minor, Op. 108 (1960) [12:13]
String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (1960) [21:56]
Nikolai MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950)
String Quartet No.13 in A minor, Op.86 (1949) [25:36]
Volume II [75.37 + 53.40]
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
String Quartet. No. 1 in C major, Op.49 (1938) [14.43]
String Quartet. No. 2 in A major, Op.68 (1944) [35.18]
String Quartet. No. 3 in F major, Op.73 (1946) [31.17]
String Quartet. No. 4 in D major, Op.83 (1949) [25.18]
Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
String Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op.92 (1941) [22.10]
Volume III [70:20 + 58:25]
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
String Quartet No. 9 in E flat major, Op. 117 (1964) [27:24]
String Quartet No. 10 in A flat major, Op. 118 (1964) [24:52]
String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 122 (1965/66) [17:47]
String Quartet No. 12 in D flat major, Op. 133 (1968) [26:11]
Mieczysław WEINBERG (1919-1996)
String Quartet No. 6 in E minor, Op. 35 (1946) [32:03]
Volume IV [45:12+59:16]
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
String Quartet No. 13 in B flat minor, Op.138 (1970) [19:15]
String Quartet No. 14 in f sharp major, Op.142 (1973) [25:45]
String Quartet No. 15 in E flat minor, Op. 144 (1974) [36:10]
Alfred SCHNITTKE (1919-1996)
String Quartet No. 3 (1983) [23:06]
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