Shostakovich- String Quartets 3 7 and 8

Product description SHOSTAKOVICH - STRING QUARTETS 3/7/8 - CD Amazon.com Shostakovich's 15 string quartets include some of his most profound and personal works. The three here, issued as part of the Hagen Quartet's ongoing series of the full cycle, are among his best and include the popular Eighth. Shostakovich write a friend that the work was his own requiem, and its mix of brooding, mournful passages, vigorous folk-based melodies, and brutal interruptions in the form of slashing chords paint a musical portrait of the man and his times. The Seventh is a concise masterpiece, four movements played without a break. Dedicated to his late wife Nina, it's highlighted by an eerily ghostly Lento movement, and a furious Scherzo. The Third is a response to the ravages of World War II that runs the gamut from a relaxed opening looking back to better times before becoming suffused with tension, to a high-octane movement featuring warp-speed interplay among the instruments, a mournful Adagio and a last movement that closes with an exhausted, shadowy coda. The Hagen are excellent throughout, playing with tremendous energy and power, conveyed via lean timbres and flowing pacing. The net effect is to internationalize Shostakovich, making the music sound somewhat less "Russian" than Eastern European ensembles do but, at the same time, fixing his universal message in a contemporary context. --Dan Davis