The three quartets on this disc form the core of Shostakovich’s quartet output; each work is a masterpiece. We seem to be living in a sort of Shostakovich quartet heaven. Everyone’s doing them, and doing them pretty well. The St. Petersburg String Quartet lacks both the polished tone and ensemble virtuosity of Deutsche Grammophon’s Emerson Quartet, to cite one recent comparison, but there’s no denying their intensity or commitment. If only the first violin could equalize her tone to better blend with her colleagues, this group would be up there with the best. They do whip up the storms in the Eighth Quartet to a fine frenzy, and they handle the Jewish elements in the Fourth Quartet’s finale with an idiomatic sense of irony. In short, they’re totally inside the music.
But competition in this repertoire is now fierce. It includes the Emerson’s spectacular new complete cycle, the Sorrel Quartet on Chandos, and several classics from past decades, not least the Borodin Quartet versions, formerly on EMI, currently on BMG/Melodiya. So while these performances are good, at times very good, there’s no point in pretending that you can’t do even better.
