Shostakovich: The String Quartets
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Composer: Dmitry ShostakovichEdition: Music CD
Format: Box set
CD Release Date: 2006-05-16
Music Label: DG
Free Music Notes for Shostakovich: The String Quartets
Free Music Review: Different...Maybe you'll like this approach, maybe you won't
Hit: 3 Stars
It's hard to assign stars to this set because it's just a different approach from the three other sets I own (Borodin, Fitzwilliam, Brodsky]. Whereas the others tend to emphasize the dramatic, soulful, and sarcastic elements of the Shostakovich, the Emerson Quartet, to some extent, downplays these while moving through the music at a noticeably brisker tempo.
The result is that some features of the music are newly revealed and others are obscured. The biggest difference is in tempo (the Emersons are without a doubt the speediest). After this, one notices the difference in virtuosity (the Emersons have technique to burn, not that there are glaring deficiencies in any of the other groups).
The Emerson's don't make this music sound like Haydn by any stretch, but they do make it sound less anguished and spiritual. The flip side of this is that the music will seem less weird to listeners who don't crave anguished sounding string quartets.
In the end, I keep going back to the readings that are starker and that highlight the perverse aspects of the music (at times it even reminds me of Carl Stalling's comic scores for the classic Warner Bros. cartoons). Shostakovich put a lot of humor into these pieces, and the mood often shifts rapidly between silly-sounding runs and heart-breaking, almost operatic melodies underpinned by beautiful, slow-moving harmonies. I like the readings that point up these contrasts; others may think the Emersons wisely avoid the temptation to over-dramatize the music and walk a more tasteful line.
Also, my very favorite interpretations benefit from very careful studio engineering and a touch of reverb. Somehow, these works almost demand good sound and perfect balances to show what they are about; that's not alway the case (I'm often happy listening to historical piano recordings from the 1930s and 1940s, for example). The Emerson set is of course live, and while the sound is great for a concert recording, the instrumental voices are not as balanced as I'd like.
While I wouldn't recommend this set to someone looking to experience this music for the first time, I'm glad it's available.
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