About 100 years ago, composers of
“serious” music stopped worrying about performing musicians, and
about audiences. They worried about themselves and their academic
reputations. As a result, I for one have little taste for most music
written after 1920 -- with some notable exceptions, including the
music of Dmitri Shostakovich. Forbidden by the draconian
communist régime from writing any form of esoteric or intellectual
music, Shostakovich wrote music that could get by the censors of the
time. Luckily for his then, and subsequent, audiences.
I like Shostakovich's music. I like the
Pavel Haas Quartet. I like the Supraphon recording
engineers, so I snapped up a new recording of the Quartet playing the
second (1944) seventh (1960) and eighth (1960) string quartets. Music
of my lifetime, and music that speaks to me; most unusual.
Shostakovich's music, like that of Sibelius, has bags of personality;
one cannot say the same of the semi-contemporary cerebral music of
people such as Stockhausen, Nono, Dallapicolla, Boulez, or
Ferneyhough. One rejoices with Shostakovich, one weeps with him, one
contemplates with him, one trembles with him, one laughs with him,
one panics with him.
Shostakovich came to the string quartet
medium somewhat later in his career but, once there, he took to the
medium like a duck to water, with fifteen string quartets. He appears
to have regarded the four voices as equals, and this is good news for
the Pavel Haas that integrates its four members without overt
favouritism. The playing is exemplary. The recording is truly
excellent. The music is of eternal value. I am extremely happy with
my purchase and am on my starting blocks for future recordings of
Shostakovich by the Pavel Haas Quartet.
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