Shostakovich String Quartets 1-13
Disc 1: String Quartets No. 1 in C major, op. 49[a]; No. 3 in F major, op. 73[a]; No. 12 in Db major, op. 133[b]
Disc 2: String Quartets No. 4 in D major, op. 83[a]; No. 5 in Bb major, op. 92[a]; No. 6 in G major, op. 101[a]
Disc 3: String Quartets No. 7 in F# minor, op. 108[a]; No. 8 in C minor, op. 110[a]; No. 9 in Eb major, op. 117[a]; No. 11 in F minor, op. 122[a]
Disc 4: String Quartets No. 2 in A major, op. 68[a]; No. 10 in Ab major, op. 118[a]; No. 13 in Bb minor, op. 138[c]
Borodin String Quartet (original members): Rostislav Dubinsky, Yaroslav Alexandrov (violins), Dmitri Shebalin (viola), Valentin Berlinsky (cello).
Chandos Historical CHAN 10064(4). ADD. 4-CD set TT 5:12:24.
Listed as recorded 1967[a]; 1968[b]; 1972[c].

More than a quarter century after vanishing from the catalogue, the traversal of the Shostakovich quartet cycle by the original members of the Borodin Quartet is at last back in circulation. Having achieved almost mythical status as the sine qua non for this repertoire, its comeback arouses curiosity and prompts re-evaluation.

As many performances of the Shostakovich quartets as have come our way, including later versions by the Borodins themselves, listeners still swear by the unassailable authority of the performances with the original members. It is hard not to be impressed by the unanimity of approach, the confidence bordering on boldness, the ease with which they convey not mere familiarity but complete consolidation with the complex, often difficult Shostakovich idiom.

The current recordings feature the group's earliest studio sessions with its original members. The first eleven quartets were recorded in 1967 and circulated in the US on two Angel Seraphim LP boxed sets (SIC 6034, 6035; deleted) in the early 1970s. The Twelfth and Thirteenth Quartets, recorded in 1968 and 1972, were subsequently added to a single-box British issue (SLS 879; deleted). The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Quartets were not recorded by the original members.

Some may be familiar with the later recording of the Borodins on a 6-CD set released in the 1990s on EMI and BMG/Melodiya (74321 40711 2; deleted). These were performances recorded between 1978 and 1984 with a regrouped ensemble, Mikhail Kopelman and Andrei Abramenkov having replaced the original violinists in 1974. The same team also recorded Quartets Nos. 2, 3, 7, 8 and 12 in 1990 for Virgin Classics (reissued as 2-CD set 5616302).

The Borodin is one of a number of revered Soviet-era string quartets - along notably with the Beethoven and Taneyev Quartets - that made a speciality of the Shostakovich canon. The oldest of these is the Beethoven. Founded in 1923, it enjoyed a long-standing reputation by the time the Borodin and Taneyev emerged, also as young conservatory graduates, in 1945 and 1946, respectively. It is the Beethoven Quartet to whom Shostakovich entrusted the premieres of all but two of his quartets, and again the Beethoven members who are the dedicatees of six of the works. And yet, it is the Borodin, with neither claim to a premiere nor a dedication, whose performances of Shostakovich are more widely known and celebrated. This recognition can be partly attributed to the wider distribution of their recordings, which, unlike those of the Beethoven and Taneyev Quartets, include more than one passage through the cycle. Another reason is the charisma of their interpretations.

The original Borodins bring a remarkable mixture of character and concentration to one of the great quartet cycles of Western music. A more daring set of tempo choices and meticulous technical precision one will certainly find elsewhere. What sets the Borodins apart is their uncanny attention to detail, their ability to impart breathing room and nuance to almost every phrase of the music without losing its essential spontaneity, inner tension or architectural solidity. Compare, for example, the wiry, hard-driven manner of the Beethoven Quartet; the emphasis on formal elegance proffered by the Fitzwilliams (Decca 289455776-2), or the enunciatory freshness of the Eder (on Naxos) and Emerson Quartets (Deutsche Grammophon 289 463 284-2; reviewed in DSCH No. 13). The fabric of the Borodins' performances, by contrast, is woven from the inside out, from an emphasis on the expressive colour and the dramatic content of each individual moment.

Well before the days when Bakhtinian inflections and hidden agendas were being discovered in Shostakovich's music, the Borodins had already found an unerring recipe for interpreting a Shostakovich idiom richly layered in semantic ambiguity. Perhaps they were at an advantage having had the opportunity to approach the music from an intuitive rather than an intellectualised perspective. In their hands, everything seems to fall into the right place - and at the right time. They are thoroughly immersed in the various moods and attitudes of the music, and convey, in a natural, unselfconscious way, its idiosyncratic, often contradictory, overlays of emotion.

A prime example of the Borodins' unique style can be heard in the finale of the Third Quartet. In this rondo-sonata movement one finds a labyrinth of contrasts that wends its way through wistful contentment, mock jollity, tragic culmination, and final melancholy. Midway through, a climactic recollection of the slow movement's main theme gives way to a sombre cello solo, then the quiet return of an insouciant little theme now turned bittersweet in its new context (Fig. 111). Timing in this passage is paramount. In the Borodins' hands, the final notes of the cello solo are fleshed out with an air of temporal stillness; the succeeding pause is one of prolonged, yet breathless anticipation, the returning violin theme capturing a forlorn matter-of-factness that is simply heartrending. No other performance I have heard elicits as much drama and poignancy from this pivotal moment, and indeed from the entire movement. Compare the rather stiff versions by the Beethoven (Russian Compact Disc RCD 16617) and St. Petersburg Quartets (Hyperion CDA 67153; reviewed in DSCH No. 13), the more assertive take of the Fitzwilliams and Eder Quartets (Naxos 8.550974), even the very sensitive rendition by the Taneyevs (Leningrad Masters LM 1325; deleted).

With the Borodins, it is from the strength of such individual moments that the solidity of the larger structure emerges. Note the high and mighty declamatory force with which the passacaglia theme recurs throughout this fourth movement. And the pleasures taken in the numerous dynamic shifts and stylish rubati of the opening Allegretto.

Breadth and contrast mark the five attached movements of the Ninth Quartet, where light and dark materials alternate through a variety of sectional links. The early Borodins accentuate these sections slightly more than the later Borodins. They shine with particular brilliance in the Allegretto's amalgamation of glee and nervous energy. Just before the Allegretto's perky theme is sprung, they play the final attached bars of the previous Adagio absolutely deadpan, providing a lead-in free of anticipatory clues. As elsewhere, contrast and contradiction are maximized. Other ensembles tend to drop the poker face a phrase or two sooner, giving the game away. Listen to the equivocal shades of mirth the early Borodins bring to the Allegretto's gypsy-inflected passages, as, for example, when the cello's rambunctious variant briefly plays foil to the elegantly arching notes of the first violin's upper register (Fig. 45).

In the final two movements, the luxurious expanse given to the passages of massive pizzicato chords allows these breakaway totems to occupy a unique, unrushed meditative space of their own. The Borodins make cohesive drama of the complex turn of events in the finale, where a climactic ascent preemptively dissolves and leads into curiously deflected territory. Throughout, they are well attuned the anticlimactic episodes in the music, a key to Shostakovian irony.

In the compact Seventh Quartet, the Borodins' instantaneous reflexes more than meet the task. They shape the quick-exchange contours of the third movement's fugue with a demonstrative sense of arrival, allowing the peak phrases to stand out against the frenetic background activity - more so than does the formidable competition, the Taneyevs (on deleted Melodiya CD SUCD11 00309 or, mislabelled, on Praga PR 7250077; reviewed in DSCH No. 14) and the Emersons. In the opening movement's thread of clipped phrases, the Borodins achieve an inner tension combined with a seamless continuity that cannot always be taken for granted. The Emersons, admirable for the fresh, vital rhythms they bring to this repertoire, here leave some of the stitches exposed. With the Borodins, the rarefied atmosphere that begins the second movement, and the sudden dissolve to wistful contentment in the finale are memorable.

Their skill in blending continuity and contrast is evident everywhere. In the five linked movements of the Eleventh Quartet, note the anticipatory pauses in between movements, the sly, parabolic arcs of their glissandi in the Scherzo, the expansive reading of the Recitative's opening spasm and its aftermath, the powerful climaxes. Compare these to the clipped, business-like versions of the above offered by the Beethovens.

With what one might paradoxically call "carefully judged spontaneity", the Borodins pry out the exuberance and wistful irony of the third movement of the Fourth Quartet, and the vibrant ascendancy of the Hebraic themes in its final movement. Vibrancy again marks the finale of the Second Quartet, though the Emerson Quartet show what new life can be brought to these variations with more flexibly steered tempi.

The Borodins certainly understand the necessary brutality of Shostakovich's music and they fearlessly engage it on that level. Listen, for example, to the animal ferocity that leaps from the jagged rhythms and grinding dissonances of the first movement of the Fifth Quartet. Here the original Borodins are particularly aggressive in building chilling climactic peaks - compare the Taneyev (Praga PR 7250077), Shostakovich (Olympia OCD 532), and later Borodin Quartets.

The short, pulsing phrases in the opening movement of the Second Quartet have a similar muscularity, as do the sharp rhythmic attacks in the Eighth Quartet. And take one of the most barbaric-sounding examples in the quartet literature, the second movement of the Tenth Quartet. In few performances will one hear such unmitigated agitation delivered and sustained. The successive high, low register dissonances in the Borodins' hands sound like great heaving inhalations and exhalations, anguished breaths of fire issued from the lungs of a dragon.

You may gather (correctly) that I have difficulty finding fault with a set of performances I have long admired. One of the few instances where I found the Borodins lacking their usual lustre is in the last two quartets of the set. The Twelfth Quartet's cryptic lyricism makes it one of the most difficult to interpret convincingly. The Beethovens take an aloof approach, bringing out the Sphinx-like character of the opening movement (Consonance CD 81-3008; deleted). It is one of the most poetic renditions on record. The Eder Quartet, on the other hand, take an opposite perspective and give a stunning, highly engaged performance (Naxos 8.550975). The Borodins are uncharacteristically cautious in both movements. A more confident, seasoned performance of this work is found in the Borodins' 1981 recording.

In the Thirteenth Quartet, the original Borodins take the central "dance of death" section at a relatively brisk pace, bringing out the jazzy downward riffs and col legno ticks with due neurotic tension. In the slower outer sections they are desolate and solemn. They are outdone by all measures, however, in the painfully intense performance of the Shostakovich Quartet (Olympia OCD 535), whose general approach to the cycle seems directly influenced by the Borodins.

The character of the Borodin Quartet owes much to the strength of its individual players. Rostislav Dubinsky, first violinist and founder of the ensemble, and cellist Valentin Berlinsky, deserve special mention. Notable are Dubinsky's expressiveness in the prominent solos throughout the Fifth and Eighth Quartets and the recitatives of the Second Quartet's slow movement, as well as the playfulness he lends to the sweet chromatic waltz theme in the second movement of the Sixth Quartet.

Likewise, cellist Berlinsky brings a gripping intensity to the Fifth Quartet from its opening page, and to the vehement declamations of the Tenth Quartet's Allegretto furioso. He also brings distinct shades to the lighter moments: the lightfooted glissandi in the opening movement of the First Quartet; the self-mocking confidence of the solos found in the finales of the Fourth and Sixth Quartets. It is no small accomplishment to lend this much character to each part and at the same time preserve the cohesiveness of the ensemble.

Given the time span between the first and second Borodin cycles (anywhere from 11 to 17 years) and the 50% change in personnel, there are more instances of similarity than one may expect. However, in the early Borodin, one will hear an unmistakable exuberance, a freshness and a focus that are its exclusive property.

On the technical side, the stereo transfers are well balanced, with good analogue frequency range though some rough edges at peak levels. There is also a small editing gaffe or two. No technical details about the transfers are provided. Rather than the flat, uniform hiss characteristic of a master tape, the crumply background noise (very faint, yet wisely overlapped through the pauses between movements) as well as the faint periodic "swish" heard in the Thirteenth Quartet, reveal direct LP transfers. The sound processing is clean and consistent. Packaging and liner notes are adequate, though I lament the absence of the fine analytical notes with musical examples by Yoritoyo Inouye that accompanied the original Seraphim LP set (not to mention - but I do! - the inclusion of a vigorous performance of Shostakovich's Two Pieces for String Octet with the Borodin and Prokofiev Quartets, which last resurfaced in the BMG/Melodiya set of the Borodins' second cycle).

Listeners will no doubt find much in these robust and deeply focused performances that they have never heard elsewhere. If the Borodins lack some of the finesse of other ensembles, they bring a vitality and level of involvement that defy comparison. They are not the last word in interpretation, nor are they curators of a bygone performing tradition that is to be looked upon with nostalgia. Rather they offer an idiomatic grasp, an intensely absorbing penetration into the music's soul that bears fruit for both listener and future performers. It is one traversal of this cherished canon that must be heard. Bravo, Chandos, for a landmark reissue!

Louis Blois
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DSCH No. 19.
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