Piano Quintet in G minor, op. 57[a]; String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, op. 110.
Talich Quartet: Jan Talich (violin I), Petr Macacek (violin II), Vladimir Bukac (viola), Petr Prause (cello); Yakov Kasman (piano).
Calliope CAL 9320. DDD. TT 54:45.
Recorded Studio Arco Diva Domovina, Prague, November 2001.

In DSCH No. 14, I applauded a reissued recording of Shostakovich's Quintet by the Talich Quartet and pianist Miroslav Langer, a reading of uncommon darkness and emotional intensity (Praga PR 7254042). Of the players who delivered that 1976 performance, only Jan Talich remains in today's Talich Quartet, yet the new account clearly builds upon many of the elements that made the earlier one succeed.

Take, for example, the third movement, which the former Talich players twisted into a decidedly sarcastic utterance. Now this Scherzo is even more caustically angular. As previously, the second movement contains a real crisis of the soul at its core, bracketed by passages of quiet fragility, but here these are made even more vulnerable in their expanded space.

It is in such drawn out and deliberate tempi that the current performance most clearly distinguishes itself from its predecessor, and indeed the rest of the competition. At 33:35, this version is one of the slowest ever recorded, taking nearly 5 minutes longer to have its say than did the Talich/Langer interpretation. As one would predict, this underlines the gloomier aspects of the opus. In the Finale, extended emphasis on mournful elements sours the atmosphere, and a subtle ritardando on the closing bars reinforces the pessimistic outlook.

Performing quality is high, with particularly fine coordination between Kasman and Talich Quartet in the expressively wide-ranging Intermezzo. Overall, I would have to rank this performance at the very top of the class, alongside the composer's own, less consistently negative recording with the Beethoven Quartet from 1955, still available on Vanguard Classics (OVC 8077) and newly remastered by Doremi (DHR-7787; reviewed above).

Unexpectedly, the accompanying Eighth Quartet finds the Quintet too hard an act to follow. Not that the Talich players' uniformly introspective and subdued approach in the slow pages is without merit, but their decision to choose speed at the expense of crushing force in the second and fourth movements evades this autobiographical work's sense of dread. The musical protagonist has come to terms with his demons, sadly, but with complete resignation. There is not even a hint of reproach in the unusually quiet and passive Seryozha refrain of the fourth movement.

Of course, some listeners may find the Talich Quartet's shunning of histrionics to be refreshing, and their technique is as admirable as in the Quintet, apart from some raspiness on Vladimir Bukac's viola in the third movement. But I found myself neither shaken nor stirred.

Whatever one's need (or lack thereof) for another Eighth Quartet, the profound exploration of the Piano Quintet is reason enough to add this disc to your shelves. Still, one cannot help but regret that Calliope have left so much room on this CD vacant; any one of ten other Shostakovich Quartets would have fit the remaining space.

W. Mark Roberts
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