Search - Dmitry Shostakovich, St. Petersburg String Quartet :: Shostakovich: String Quartets Op.83, 101, 110

In the Petersburg's reading, Shostakovich's dark pastoral, No. 4, opens anxiously, to say the least. One virtually hears the butterflies in the narrative's stomach. The piece moves quickly from gentle opening to dark-hued main body, as if leaping from spring to autumn without the benefit of a summer vacation. It gets as icy as it is compositionally demanding, even shrill at times. There's something distressed in the jittery quality of the players' lines, which don't progress a second without wavering microtonally. When spring returns, it doesn't manage to shrug off autumn's shadow, and the Petersburgs have proved themselves able storytellers. The jump to No. 6's cotillion of an opening movement couldn't be more pronounced, except for the way that Shostakovich warps familiar chamber motifs. The unease that marked the players' individual attacks in No. 4 is here applied to whole melodies, which sound Mozartean in their frivolity but are apt to dissolve into discord, as if in a disturbed dream. No. 8 bears the most distinctly Slavic cast, and provides a meaty counterpoint to No. 4. This is, sure thing, tough material: best suited to listeners for whom the traditional chamber repertoire has grown familiar, but who still want a sense of compositional grounding. --Marc Weidenbaum