Customer Reviews

Shostakovich, Borodin, Ravel: String Quartets

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Northern Lights...

We continue our enthusiasts' survey of post-WWII notable string quartet ensembles with this fine issue of performances by the Borodins.

Having already cited international resistance to German ensembles, it is a point that victorious survivors of the global man-made catastrophe apparently took pride in vaunting their own intrinsic national characteristics while appreciating each other--(over the Germans).

This BBC issue of `live' recordings features the renowned Muscovite ensemble in its most characteristic, enduring and cohesive permutation in concert at the Edinburgh Festival, 1962.

The sound of these 20-bit digitally remastered recordings is amazingly good; the prim Scottish audience is respectfully unobtrusive--for, despite the impression offered by Trainspotting, Scotland has a long and noble history both as an independent nation and as an hub of northern Enlightenment.

This was the first appearance of the Borodins in Britain, thusly adding documentary significance to the music-making: indeed, there is an almost hypnotic ambience in these recordings--an envelope of time-regained.

The performances themselves are absolutely stunning: as Robert Layton notes, the Borodin's `refinement of sonority, unanimity of ensemble, and subtlety of colouring' are phenomenal.

Furthermore, it's very nice to have two of the most formally perfect works of the genre back-to-back on one disc: the Borodin Second and the Ravel--both of which are brilliantly realized with a physical execution embodying an alert psychic balance of intellectual acuity and emotional sympathy: though both works have been performed and recorded numerous times, it's difficult to cite realizations finer than these.

(Full disclosure: the editors have inexplicably opted to retain the vigourous applause at the end of each piece.)

Pray consider:
Borodins w/Richter: Dvorák Piano Quintets
Borodins w/Richter: Brahms Piano Quartet
Borodins w/Richter: Franck Piano Quintet
Borodins: Schubert String Quintet
Borodins: Brahms Quartets
Borodins: Tchaikovsky Quartets
Borodins: Borodin Quartets
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