SHOSTAKOVICH

String Quartets Nos 1-15 Brodsky Quartet

Chandos CHAN 10917(6) 397:27 mins (6 discs)

Few British ensembles have been more dedicated exponents of Shostakovich than the Brodsky Quartet. After their first recorded complete cycle for Teldec made in 1989, they have continued to give memorable concerts of his works in an astonishing variety of settings, from remote churches on Norwegian fjords to the Sydney Opera House.

As viola player Paul Cassidy explains in his engaging booklet notes, the Brodskys decided to make live recordings in the belief that concerts allow for a greater degree of communion between composer, performers and audience than the relatively clinical backdrop of the recording studio. This strategy works particularly well here since the performances as a whole achieve a rare degree of intensity. It really draws you into the unsettling subtext of Shostakovich’s writing. Even if there are a few moments where the ensemble is not absolutely pristine, the Brodskys take greater risks than in their first recording, whether, for example, in stoking up everincreasing levels of ferocity in the relentless second movement of the Tenth, or in adopting a much slower yet concentrated tempo for the outer movements of the Eighth.

Violinist Daniel Rowland’s charismatic contribution comes into its own in the wonderfully sensitive way he moulds the anguished melodic lines in the Recitative of the Second. Notably, too, in the powerful way he dispatches the frenzied outbursts that punctuate the desolate landscape of the 15th.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of these recordings lies in the huge range of dynamics and timbres that are employed to project the sometimes bewildering sequence of emotions that emanate from Shostakovich’s musical argument. Nowhere is this more compellingly conveyed than in the way the seemingly carefree exterior of the Sixth is repeatedly subverted to present the work in much darker colours than is often the case.