COMPOSERS: Shostakovich
LABELS: EMI
ALBUM TITLE: Shostakovich
WORKS: String Quartet No. 3; String Quartet No. 7; String Quartet No. 8
PERFORMER: St Lawrence Quartet
CATALOGUE NO: 359 9562
Following the Hagen Quartet’s recent
provocative DG release of the same
works (reviewed in July), one could be
forgiven for thinking that the present
recording is likely to be surplus to
requirements. Yet hearing both discs
side by side reinforces my conviction
that these masterpieces can
accommodate diametrically different
interpretative approaches. Whereas
the Hagens present a somewhat
detached view of the music, the
St Lawrence Quartet, recorded in a
fairly dry acoustic, opt for powerful
emotive playing, more in the manner
of the marvellous St Petersburg
Quartet versions for Hyperion.
There are no chinks of light in
the neo-classical first movement of
the Third Quartet played here in
a deliberately dour but convincing
manner. Inexplicably the ensemble
fails to observe the exposition repeat,
a decision that robs the movement
of its structural logic and dramatic
coherence. The performance is
strong in the central movements,
though one moment of dubious
intonation in the opening unison
passage of the Adagio could ideally
have been ironed out.
For the Seventh and Eighth
Quartets, the St Lawrence take much
broader tempos than the Hagens
in the respective slow movements.
This ploy is especially effective in the
Lento of the Seventh which evokes
the bleakest of landscapes and makes
the ensuing torrent of aggression of
the fugal development all the more
shattering. Surprisingly it is less
convincing in the first, fourth and
fifth movements of the Eighth which
seem to get bogged down in places
with a rather self-conscious use of
rubato. Nonetheless, for all these
misgivings I enjoyed this disc, even
if it doesn’t match the Hagen or
St Petersburg Quartets. Erik Levi
