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| Dmitry Shostakovich: String Quartet Nos. 2,3,7,8 & 12 | 
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| Creators: Dmitry Shostakovich, Borodin Quartet
Label: EMI Classics
Category: Music
List Price: $10.98
Buy New: $6.60
You Save: $4.38 (40%)
Buy New/Used from $6.60
Avg. Customer Rating:  (6 reviews)
Sales Rank: 8119
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4
MPN: 61630
UPC: 724356163027
EAN: 0724356163027
ASIN: B000027JEP
Release Date: February 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | String Quartet No. 2 in A Major | | • | String Quartet No. 2 in A Major | | • | String Quartet No. 2 in A Major | | • | String Quartet No. 2 in A Major | | • | String Quartet No. 12 in D flat Major | | • | String Quartet No. 12 in D flat Major |
Disc 2
| • | String Quartet No.8 in C Minor | | • | String Quartet No.8 in C Minor | | • | String Quartet No.8 in C Minor | | • | String Quartet No.8 in C Minor | | • | String Quartet No.8 in C Minor | | • | String Quartet No. 7 in F sharp Minor | | • | String Quartet No. 7 in F sharp Minor | | • | String Quartet No. 7 in F sharp Minor | | • | String Quartet No. 3 in F Major | | • | String Quartet No. 3 in F Major | | • | String Quartet No. 3 in F Major | | • | String Quartet No. 3 in F Major | | • | String Quartet No. 3 in F Major |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
Buy this cd or live to regret it. May 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's stupidly inexpensive, it's TWO discs, it should be badly recorded garbage.
And it's absolutely brilliant.
Amazing music, performed with consummate skill and musicality.
Great Chamber Music Superbly Played April 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Many think that the Borodins' recorded performances of the Shostakovich quartets, especially those made earlier in their career, are definitive. Some critics have complained that these more recent recordings show that the players had lost their "edge". What is missing is the distortion introduced in earlier recordings by the Russian engineers. These recordings are very good. All five of the Shostakovich quartets on these two CDs are superbly played. The performance of the 8th is stunning. Anyone who enjoys chamber music or Shostakovich should not miss this two CD set.
 Mellow and relaxed -- perhaps not the best anymore April 17, 2008
3 out of 10 found this review helpful
I respect the five-star reviews here, but for me this super-bargain selection of Shostakovich quartets sounds a bit tame. One must grant that the Borodin Qt. has long been acclaimed for its readings of these works, but there were two previous sets, one from 1967-71 with the original members (available on Chandos), another from 1978-83 with a new first and second violinist after the emigration of the two original members (recorded by Melodiya, licensed in the West to EMI and BMG). Both are acknowledged as nearly definitive, even though the earleir set lacks the last two quartets, #14 and #15, which had yet to be composed.
These 1990 performances, recorded at the Maltings, Snape in nice digital sound, are typical of the Borodins in their later phase: they sound accomplished, relaxed, and highly experienced. Those are all pluses, and yet when one turns to the competiiton, which is fierce, one hears more drama, commitment, and virtuosity in the Emerson Qt., while at super-budget there is the Shostakovich Qt., who have mastered the idiom within a hair's breadth of their more famous compatriots. In other words, I don't think the later Borodins quite measure up to their earlier selves or to the best of what came after.
Having said that, there's a settled, autumnal quality to these recordings that will always appeal to listeners.
sheer brilliance and range, brilliantly performed November 15, 2003
39 out of 39 found this review helpful
These five Shostakovich string quartets were recorded by the Borodin Quartet in London in 1990, and the performance and recording are absolutely brilliant, to match the compositions. (The earlier complete cycle of 15 quartets, recorded in the 1980s by an earlier line-up of the Borodins, is no longer available.)
Quartets 2 and 3, which open and close this set, were written respectively in 1944 and 1946, expressions of DSCH in his prime, during the war and its immediate aftermath. They are among his finest works, too rich in mood and style to summarize briefly. The 8th Quartet of 1960 is his best known, and it was publicly dedicated to "the victims of war and fascism." Of course the interpretation of that phrase by the Soviet officials was at variance with what we now know to be DSCH's view. I heard the Kronos Quartet recording (on BLACK ANGELS) before this one -- by comparison it is harder-edged, emphasizing the bitter rage at the perpetrators, while the Borodin recording emphasizes grief and quiet desolation. Or in other words, the Kronos recording is strong in the louder passages, while the Borodin recording is more expressive and convincing in the slower, quieter passages, which predominate. The 7th Quartet (also of 1960), in honor of Shostakovich's first wife Nina, who died in 1954, is in three movements, and concludes with a powerful raging allegro. Finally, the 12th Quartet, completed in 1968, is in two movements. It can here be seen to represent the "late quartets," 12-15, all of which are dark works written as Shostakovich's health failed and he was in and out of hospitals. The 12th is a powerful, memorable work that continues to show an amazing range, the baring of a complex soul.
Along with the best of Shostakovich's symphonies, his best string quartets are among the finest music of the 20th century, and should be heard by absolutely all music-lovers. Though chronologically later, this is not music that extends the radical innovations of Schoenberg (and Bartok's string quartets). Shostakovich's music is not exactly neo-classical, or neo-romantic, but the modernist elements in his work are integrated seamlessly into a mainly tonal, lyrical conception that makes it more acceptable to the average concert-goer than the music of many of DSCH's contemporaries in the West. Dark and gloomy, yes, but not a radical departure from "the classical tradition."
A PILGRIMAGE August 17, 2003
24 out of 24 found this review helpful
This 2-disc selection of 5 Shostakovich quartets is arranged with quartets #2 and #12 on the first disc, #8, #7 and #3 (in that order for some reason) on the second.It seems to me that far and away the best sequence for listening to them is the chronological sequence of publication, which to the best of my knowledge is also the sequence of their composition. Shostakovich's output is a pilgrim's progress. His music tracks his states of mind, and with the quartets we can try to follow those comparatively free from external political influences and the pressing practical need to adopt public and official personae. These quartets have far more unity and consistency of style than do the symphonies and concertos, and it is far easier for the hearer to gain a feel for the composer's real private identity. 3 of the 5 here are in major keys, but the prevailing mood is sombre and introverted in all of them. It almost goes without saying that this is not `absolute' music - the music by itself is not the whole story as it is in the quartets of Borodin or Brahms. The listener needs to read the composer's mind-set as best he can, with or without help from the composer's biography. If anyone wants my advice, it would be to persevere without that for a while, as music of this stature demands to be heard for itself. There are no early works here - the second quartet has the opus-# 68 - and one of the things I like best about them is that they are `genuine' quartets, if that expression may be excused. More or less nobody's quartets consist of absolutely pure four-part writing, but there are cases, even including such great works as Franck's quartet or Schumann's quintet, where the string-writing is really for a miniature string band or orchestra rather than a distinctive quartet. Shostakovich is not afraid to relax the idiom at times, notably in the recitative movement of the second quartet (and why should he be? - neither was Beethoven, neither was Brahms), but fundamentally he is as faithful to the quartet concept as Haydn himself. The recorded sound is excellent without drawing attention to itself in any way, as it does in the Borodins' great disc of Borodin's own quartets. The performances strike me as exemplary in their sympathy and understanding as well as proficiency, and the whole production ranks as what Thucydides called `a possession for ever', meaning by that a thing to be returned to over and over again. It's a classic that will not soon be supplanted.
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