Borodin • Shostakovich • Weinberg

Borodin: String Quartet No. 2; Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8; Weinberg: String Quartet No. 5 Dragon Quartet

Channel Classics CCS 40919 73:03 mins Since the Borodin Quartet first made the unlikely coupling on disc of their namesake’s Second Quartet with Shostakovich’s Eighth – a pairing which made sense in their case, since the Borodins had a close relationship with the Soviet composer – several quartets have followed suit. Yet, quite apart from the common nationality of the composers, these two works inhabit utterly different worlds and the only obvious merit in coupling them is to demonstrate a quartet’s versatility. The Dragon Quartet adds to their programme a far lesser-known quartet by the Polish-jewish émigré composer Weinberg, a close friend of Shostakovich’s.

The Dragons play Borodin’s Second with affection and a natural flow particularly welcome after a number of more self-conscious performances recorded in the past few years. There’s a similarly fluent quality to their Shostakovich, but – it seems to me – no sense that the work, with its strongly autobiographical elements, is a record of a sentient intelligence numbed by trauma, such as can be heard in the Pacifica Quartet’s recording (on Cedille); even the brutality of the Allegro molto, the Dragon Quartet’s finest moment, misses the anguish found by the Pacifica. In fairness, the Dragons measure up well against most of the competition, but memories of how this quartet can go rather mutes my appreciation.

Weinberg’s Fifth Quartet is played with similar polish – certainly a cleaner performance than Quatuor Danel’s which is at present the only alternative recording (on CPO): yet, again, the Dragons appear to miss a deal of nuance and character, which Quatuor Danel provide and so save the quartet from sounding simply like second-hand Shostakovich.

Daniel Jaffé

PERFORMANCE ★★★

RECORDING ★★★★