DSCH 22 Shostakovich DVD Review - Borodin Quartet Master Class

Master Class: Borodin Quartet
Master class: String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, op. 110; Beethoven: String Quartet No. 4 in C minor, op. 18.
Valentin Berlinsky, Dominant Quartet: Do Phuong Nhu (violin 1), Ekaterina Pogodina (violin 2), Anna Sazonkina (viola), Tatiana Egorova (cello).
Concert: String Quartet No. 2 in A major, op. 68; Beethoven: String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, op. 59, Razumovsky No. 2.
Borodin Quartet: Ruben Aharonian (violin 1), Andrei Abramenkov (violin 2), Igor Naidin (viola), Valentin Berlinsky (cello).
Director: Tatiana Vorona; Script: Roman Dikhtyar.
Ruscico RUSD9566DVD. Stereo/Dolby Digital 5.1. Colour. 2-disc DVD-Video set TT 180 min.
Subtitles: Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese.
Bonus material: V. Berlinsky About His Master Class; Reminiscences by V. Berlinsky and Z. Berlinsky; Interviews with students; The Quartet's Rehearsal; The Quartet About Themselves; Interviews with I. Shostakovich, Yu. Bashmet, V. Tretyakov, V. Berlinsky, M. Yakubov, L. Berlinsky; Biographies; Posters; Video Archives; Photo Album; Leaflet with a list of all works performed by the Quartet from 1944 to 1999.
Concert recorded Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, 2002.

Valentin Berlinsky

This richly appointed 2-disc set is, above all, an affectionate tribute to the sole surviving member of the original Borodin Quartet, Valentin Berlinsky. While the concert, interviews and historical bonus materials do a fine job of documenting the past and present of the ensemble, this production orbits around the cellist.

Berlinsky makes a point

At the core is a master class in which Berlinsky coaches the youthful Dominant Quartet, beginning with Beethoven's op. 18, No. 4. As all dialogue is in Russian, the subtitles are essential; a few unidiomatic translations in the English version do not impede understanding. As the Dominants play, Berlinsky frequently interrupts with nuggets of wisdom about bowing and fingering technique, emphatically but with gentle humour: "Tania, maybe it's not right to say to you, a lovely woman, that you have to play more manly, but I will say it anyway!" His pointers relate principally to the evolving moods of the work, as when he exhorts, "Smile, will you?" Liking what he hears, "You see, it's quite different now!"

Along the way Berlinsky reminisces fondly about the Borodins' original first violinist, Rostislav Dubinsky, and gossips about sour relations within the exalted Beethoven Quartet. There are hints, too, that the current members of the Borodin Quartet do not see eye to eye on all performance matters, Berlinsky at one point confessing, "I don't like the way the Borodin Quartet plays this movement now."

Do Phuong Nhu, Ekaterina Pogodina

Turning from Beethoven to Shostakovich's Eighth Quartet, Berlinsky retells an anecdote recounted in Elizabeth Wilson's Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, about going to play the work to the composer at his apartment, a performance that moved him to request, "Please, go on playing it like this." Given this endorsement, plus Berlinsky's personal connection to the composer, the fact that, as he reports, he has played this quartet 480 times, and the wealth of insights he shared with his students during their Beethoven presentation, there is high anticipation of the revelations awaiting in Shostakovich's Eighth.

Dominants perform

Thus, it comes as a great disappointment when Berlinsky allows the Dominants to play op. 110 from start to finish without once calling a pause to dispense advice! His only input during the recital is an occasional silent gesture calling for greater emphasis. At the end, a visibly moved Berlinsky thanks the Dominants and gives leader Do Phuong Nhu an unimpeachably grateful kiss on the lips. His only recommendation is that they should work on their intonation, which is "not always exact".

In terms of the Dominants' grasp of the material, however, Berlinsky feels that they correctly understand Shostakovich's ideas, which he attributes to nationality. "For example, the episode 'Worn out by unbearable bondage': when some Western quartets play it - when, as we say, the infidels play - they don't understand what they're singing about. … They don't know this song and they don't know what it's about."

There is no programmatic overlap between the master class and the recent concert on the second DVD. We have a backstage pass to watch the Borodins relaxing and tuning up before the concert. Here Berlinsky's hypothesis about innate Russian sensitivity to Shostakovich's idiom frays at the edges, with first violinist Ruben Aharonian opining, a propos of the Second Quartet, "Maybe I sound blasphemous, but the composer overburdened these phrases with repetitions. … Sometimes it seems to me the composer didn't know himself what to do with this theme, with its solemnity." With a witheringly incredulous stare, Berlinsky puts an end to such conjecture: "He could take up some other theme, but somehow he chose this one."

Borodin Quartet: String Quartets Nos 1-13

The concert opens with Shostakovich's Second Quartet, a work so familiar to these musicians that playing it now seems virtually an autonomic function. This fuel-efficient rendition does not generate as many horsepower as the Borodins' 1967 recording (Chandos CHAN 10064(4); reviewed in DSCH No. 19), especially in that bedlam Waltz of a third movement, where the echoes of Symphony No. 4 are less frenzied. But the second movement, Recitative and Romance, is effective at freezing time, and the players catch fire in the fourth.

For the second half of their programme, the Borodins offer an aristocratic reading of Beethoven's second Razumovsky Quartet. The performance is generally unhurried and pastoral, with storm clouds blowing through without dampening the ground. Nevertheless, enough muscle is applied for Berlinsky to snap a string at the beginning of the Presto, requiring a quick trip offstage for repairs. The same fate befalls Aharonian's violin on the quartet's very last note, to the amusement of all in the hall. The enthusiastic audience extract an encore from the Borodins in the shape of the Presto from Beethoven's String Quartet No. 13, op. 130. We follow the musicians into the chaos backstage to receive the praise of well-wishers.

Rehearsal

There is a great deal more to this package than these main attractions. We are privy to the Borodins' rehearsal for the concert; there are moments of testiness here, but there is naught but respect when the members are interviewed separately about one another. The previous recipe of the Borodin Quartet, with Mikhail Kopelman, Abramenkov, Dmitri Shebalin and Berlinsky, is represented by a performance of the second movement of Shostakovich's Quintet with Sviatoslav Richter, who maintains, throughout, the monolithic countenance of an Easter Island moai. Going back further, we have the Nocturne from Borodin's Quartet No. 2, played gorgeously by Dubinsky, Yaroslav Alexandrov, Shebalin and Berlinsky. There are extended interviews with Berlinsky discussing his family, his friendship with Shostakovich, and his students, plus interviews with his students, family and colleagues discussing him. Also valuable are biographies of the various members of the Quartet throughout its history, and an assortment of still photographs. The overall production quality is high, with good sound engineering and crisp cinematography.

One lingering regret is the missed opportunity to learn more about the nuances of performing Shostakovich's most popular quartet from arguably its most authoritative living performer. Nevertheless, we do get a creditable uninterrupted recital of the work from a talented young ensemble (in surround sound no less), one of sufficient emotional depth to deeply move Berlinsky himself. Overall, I cannot imagine that any reader of this journal would not consider this set a most rewarding acquisition.

W. Mark Roberts
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