SHOSTAKOVICH: Complete String Quartets
Emerson String Quartet
DG 463 284-2, 5 discs
(75'26, 76'58, 77'56, 68'33 & 60'38) Full Price
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Shostakovich's fifteen string quartets, along with Bartok's six, are the
greatest of the twentieth century. They also differ markedly. Shostakovich's
are melodic, lyrical and often direct (and perhaps more intimate, not least
in the final three), whereas Bartok's are abrasive and often make for an
uncomfortable listening experience, astonishingly powerful though they are.
Bartok's span his entire creative life, Shostakovich's do not. Although he
also wrote fifteen symphonies, it is perhaps significant that the quartets
do not all mirror the contemporaneous issues from which the symphonies' creative
energy is derived. The First Quartet, from 1938, appears after both the Fourth
and Fifth Symphonies, yet there is none of the monumentalism, none of the
terror, high tragedy or brutal destructiveness that marks those masterpieces
out from Shostakovich's earlier works.
Although the First Quartet is not his shortest (that honour falls to the
Seventh), it is in many ways the most typically Beethovenian. Its four movements
are short, but it is not until the second movement, with its lyricism and
melodic phrasing, that we begin to hear a master of shading and colour at
work. The Emersons play it persuasively, although it not until the Second
Quartet that we hear both Shostakovich and the Emersons in more astonishing
form. Although this is the only wartime quartet (1944), it does not have
quite the power or bleak desolation of the Eighth (inspired by the bombing
of Dresden) written in 1960. It does, however, have an urgent, almost unsettling
plangency (sample the Emersons in the final movement from 6'38 as the pace
quickens and then hollows out to a slow, haunting close). One of his longest
quartets, the Emerson's handle the tension of the moderato and adagio superbly,
the final movement's variations shadowed by some hauntingly bare, almost
surreal upper harmonics.
The Fourth and Fifth Quartets mark the beginnings of Shostakovich's mature
quartet style. The Fourth's (1949) opening movement, with its recitative
high violins singing archingly, before plunging into shadowy distillation,
is movingly played by the Emersons. The second movement andantino
is beautifully phrased (the soulful, searching violin and viola passage leading
to the cello's first entry at 1'16 is heavenly), and the third movement scherzo
is duly menacing. The cello is dark and brooding, the violins at 2'15 and
2'39 chattering like blackbirds. The last movement, which suggests Shostakovich's
first direct referencing to death in any of the quartets, is compellingly
drawn and ends superbly. At 8'15 the progression towards stasis begins with
a melody on the cello , reinstated at 8'46, and hollow pizzicato follows
like death itself hammering out its trenchant calling.
The Fifth (1952) is Shostakovich's first quartet to have a direct connection
with one of the symphonies, in this case the Tenth. The portraiture evinced
in the Scherzo of the Tenth is here somewhat replicated. The bass line is
strongly drawn, as is the droning lyricism. The pacing is fast, the string
playing often disfigured by grotesquely drawn harmonies (6'20 onwards), and
the direct quotes from the Tenth at 7'50 to 8'06 are savagely presented.
By contrast, the Sixth Quartet, from 1956, is his first post-Stalinist one.
Compared with both the Fourth and the Fifth Quartets it is substantially
less weighty, certainly more dance-like in its rhythms and more lyrical than
the monstrous, forbidding writing Shostakovich felt compelled to write for
its predecessor. Darkness does loom transparently towards the end, invading
like an incoming tide imperceptibly clouding the shore. The Emerson Quartet
define this shift beautifully, if somewhat enigmatically.
The year 1960 saw two quartets - the short Seventh and the magnificent Eighth.
The Seventh, short though it is, has every reason to be Shostakovich's most
personal work. Dedicated to his wife, it is a work with a quite astonishing
landscape. Moving between passion and tension, it draws largely on fugal
writing to make the distinctions apparent. The upward momentum of the third
movement (to 00'16) is bitterly phrased, the turbulent chord writing from
1'07 onwards fantastically carved and the dissonance before 2'00, leading
to the melancholic waltz theme at 2'32, is all superbly articulated by the
Emersons. The pizzicato passages (at 4'00) shift between steel-like brightness
to deep, velvety darkness.
The Eighth is probably Shostakovich's single most recorded string quartet.
It is one of the bleakest works he ever wrote, a work where there appears
an honest reflection that there is no hope, just despair and no reconciliation.
The opening itself is tenebrous, and totally unrelenting, the mood not shifting
until the cathartic attaca writing of the second movement. Eugene
Drucker, violinist with the Emersons, says of the second movement, 'you have
the extreme violence .......: it depicts the frenzy and violence of war,
and it's in that context that the Jewish theme is shrieked by the two violins
in octaves'. You can hear these two octaves at 0'56 and 2'24, and the impassioned
playing makes this fully realised. Using the D-S-C-H (D-E flat-C-B) motif
of the Tenth Symphony (heard very obviously throughout the third movement,
but particularly at 1'48 to 2'50 and again at 3'33 to 3'39) the Emersons
give a reading that is both impassioned and expressively powerful. This is
certainly a case where their dynamic range is used to greater effect than
on any other recording of the work. Whilst occasionally the Emerson's superlative
technique can sometimes mask the emotive power of Shostakovich's writing,
this Eighth has an unusually personal drama about it. Somehow, the truth
of this recording is all too unsparing. Philip Setzer's comment that 'the
skeletons get up to dance' seems wholly appropriate.
The Ninth (1964), a monumentally interconnected work, the Tenth (1964), with
its passacaglia, the Eleventh, the most operatic of the cycle and the Twelfth
(1968) all somehow rest in the shadow of the final three quartets, a triumvirate
of despairing, almost hallucinogenic and pain-drenched works.
The Thirteenth is the only work in a single movement, and has a particularly
striking darkness to it, helped by the dominance of the viola. Both the opening
and close of the work bring extraordinarily sensitive playing from Lawrence
Dutton, a violist with an unusually deep tone world (and shattering intonation,
just before 19'08). The pizzicato articulation and high violin harmonics
(10'01 onwards) are beautifully captured. This quartet is both surreal (keeping
in line with Shostakovich's somewhat pill-fueled demeanour at the time) and
extraordinarily atonal (compared with its predecessors). The Emersons ply
this work with attenuated, almost marantic tone, both in the jazz theme and
the slumbering, cataleptic outer parts. Whereas the viola dominated the
Thirteenth, so the cello does the Fourteenth. This does not perhaps inhabit
the same sound world as its immediate partners, but the Mahlerian undertones
are always evident. The Emersons play with pungency and a certain causticness.
The Fifteenth is simply as depressing a work as you will ever hear. The opening
is skeletal with notes isolated in ghostly darkness - and the Emersons play
this as if they were extracting each note one by one from the ether. The
contrast between the work's dissonance and restrained violence is often
unsettling, and more so when the clarity of the recording makes it appear
so very close to you. That the Emersons sustain this eloquent grief-ridden
tragedy so marvellously is a miracle.
So how do the Emersons compare with others? In terms of technique, these
are the most perfectly played performances to have yet appeared. The
articulation, particularly in the faster movements (which are taken much
faster than any of their rivals), is phenomenal, and intonation is invariably
spot-on. They have in the past (in both Beethoven and Bartok) been accused
of placing technique ahead of understanding and interpretation, and I'm afraid
that is a valid criticism in this cycle as well. There are many extraordinary
things - the last three quartets, the Eighth, the Ninth and the Fifth which
easily stand comparison with the greatest recordings of the work. The Borodin
Quartet, on EMI (not on the later CD version, but on the earlier LPs) bring
astonishing girth to Shostakovich's fragmentary and personal imagination.
These LPs are in need of a CD release, for they are still unsurpassed. But
the Emerson cycle is now the primary recommendation for this music on CD
- easily outflanking the Fitzwilliams on Phillips and the Eder on Naxos.
DG have given the Emersons a spacious recording, and despite the fact these
are live recordings there are no extra sounds to distract from the pleasure
of hearing this extraordinary music. I will be reviewing the Emersons
Shostakovich cycle in London (at the Wigmore Hall and Barbican during May)
for Seen & Heard and will be interested to see what differences emerge.
An important release.
Reviewer
Marc Bridle
Performance and Sound :
