Shostakovich string quartet cycles seem to be coming thick and furious these days, with Hyperion, Chandos, Deutsche Grammophon, and BIS all weighing in, and the fact is that most (if not all) of these recordings will be good to excellent. As is the case with Mahler’s symphonies, we seem to be living at a time when musicians seem comfortable with the style and emotional climate of these works, meaning that genuinely poor performances are pretty infrequent. That said, there are clear differences between these players and, say, the Yggdrasil Quartet on BIS, differences that reflect two fundamentally different approaches to the music. The Yggdrasil has, technically, the finer players, and they keep a little of the music’s emotion in reserve, letting the tension build naturally to the explosive climaxes. The St. Petersburg String Quartet, by contrast, lets it all hang out from the beginning. This means that, for example, they make such a meal of the innocent opening of the Third Quartet that they can only offer more of the same later. On the other hand, their highly impulsive approach proves very effective in the characterful Theme and Variations finale of the Second Quartet. If I marginally prefer the Yggdrasil, it’s only because that group offers a more satisfying balance between the music’s emotional and structural elements, and because of the clear superiority of the principal violinist. But these supercharged, hyperemotional performances offer a legitimate approach to the music, and they are well recorded to boot. If this is the coupling you want (Yggdrasil offers quartets Nos. 3, 7 and 8), you’ll find much to enjoy here.
