Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
String Quartet No.6 in G major Op.101 (1956)
String Quartet No.5 in B flat major Op.92 (1952)
String Quartet No.4 in D major Op.83 (1949)
String Quartet No.3 in F major Op.73 (1946)
String Quartet No.2 in A major Op.68 (1944)
String Quartet No.1 in C major Op.49 (1938)
Two Pieces for String Quartet (c. 1931)
Asasello-Quartett
rec. 2024, Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal Cologne, Germany
Genuin GEN25908 [2 CDs: 158]
Once in a while you encounter a performance of such authority and emotional power that any of the usual ‘tools’ of critical assessment seem redundant if not slightly foolish. It is not a question of this performance being ‘better’ technically or musically than others, but rather that the musical vision offered seems to achieve exactly the goals it sought so completely that to find minutiae to critique along that visionary path feels petty.
Back in December 2023 I encountered the Asasello-Quartett for the first time in their recording of Shostakovich’s String Quartets 7-13 and it proved to be revelatory and easily entered my list of Recordings of the Year. That being the case, I have been eagerly waiting for this next instalment and the simple truth is it is every bit as fine and – for me – impressive as the first release. Perhaps I am not quite as dumb-struck as previously but that is simply a case of expectation. In the intervening eighteen months, we are now in the 50th Anniversary year since Shostakovich’s death and can expect to have many more recordings and re-releases to mark that event. Also, here on MusicWeb, we are extraordinarily fortunate to have become the repository of the programme notes and writings of Alan George – famously the viola player for the Fitzwilliam String Quartet for 56 years who – equally famously – as a young quartet made the first complete Western cycle of these remarkable quartets with the collaboration and support of the ailing composer. That first-hand insight and understanding cannot be overstated – the simple physical act of playing a piece of music transcends any amount of analysis, listening or study. I would warmly recommend interested readers to delve into this precious archive which includes all the works offered here to which end I will not spend much time describing the music because Mr George does that better!
What I find retuning again to both this music and this group of players is that my admiration for both is even further elevated. Again, I must stress that I do not think that any version by any ensemble can be considered to be the ‘last word’ on such a substantial body of work. The original Borodin/Beethoven Quartet cycle on Melodiya will always retain a special place in the history of performing and recording these works and to this day they blaze with conviction. String Quartet playing currently is of such a high standard that I cannot think of a single ensemble/performance that is not technically accomplished so it becomes a question of musical insight and communication and how convincingly the group are able to present their vision. To my ear the success of these Asasello-Quartett performances is their ability to embrace the extremes – technical as well as musical – and emotional paradoxes that seem to lie at the heart of this extraordinary cycle.
After all Shostakovich’s fifteen quartets chart his life – public and private – from the “springtime” simplicities of the String Quartet No.1 in C major Op.49, which seems oddly serene given it was written in the terrifying aftermath of the “Muddle instead of Music” scandal surrounding Lady Macbeth of the Mtzensk District, through to the death-haunted String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat minor, Op. 144. Commentators and listeners alike pick apart Shostakovich’s music more than most looking for ‘meaning’ whether explicit or hidden and certainly the quartets are a rich source for musicological rune-reading. Interestingly the Asasello-Quartett have chosen to present these six quartets in reverse order whereas on the earlier set numbers 7-13 were played in ascending sequence. So the set opens with the relative serenity of String Quartet No.6 in G major Op.101. This appeared during the post-Stalin thaw of 1956 and superficially sounds like a consciously simple even naive work. The quality of this new performance is established from the very opening bars with playing of unmannered skill aided – as in volume 1 – by a recording from the Genuin engineers of ideal natural balance and clarity. The other performing characteristic that I noted in the earlier set is here apparent too. The quartet are able to perform with all the classical poise and technical polish that is necessary but as soon as Shostakovich creates tension – a kind of summer thunderstorm that can emerge within a matter of bars – their playing transforms seamlessly to the febrile intensity that characterised the intense and compelling performances of the older Soviet ensembles. Yet even in a work as seemingly uncomplicated as this, little question marks remain. Why did Shostakovich end each movement with the same cadential figure composed of the four notes of his musical moniker; D/S/C/H? In fact use of this motif would occur across the 5th – 8th quartets receiving its most explicit presentation in the latter. Alan George in his note for the 6th quartet makes the very valid comment that by being one of the less ‘grand’ of the cycle – which it never intended to be – it provides a necessary variation and diversity to the whole group. As such the Asasello-Quartett’s slightly introverted performance seems well-chosen and wholly apt – as well as extremely skilled.
The String Quartet No.5 in B flat major Op.92 is one of those significant group of works that Shostakovich wrote while Stalin was alive but withheld from public performance until after his death. This is instantly grittier music and the Asasello-Quartett ratchet up the intensity of their playing. Stephen Harris’ articles about the quartets online are very insightful. He points to this quartet’s origins being in the 1950 celebrations in Leipzig of Bach’s death with in turn led Shostakovich to compose his own piano 24 Preludes and Fugues. Henceforward he would increasingly use counterpoint in his own works. Of course the DSCH motif may simply be another Bachian influence given the older composer’s frequent use of his own BACH. One of the wisdoms of the Asasello-Quartett’s playing is that they do not seek to over-interpret these works; it strikes me that they give intelligent and attentive but literal performances so the many ambiguities and question marks are clear and apparent but with no attempt to force an ‘explanation’ on the listener.
Part of the enduring fascination for modern audiences of this music is surely this chameleon-like shifting musical personality. To this day the debate about the composer as Party hack or secret dissident continues and is often shaped by the commentator’s own perception of the meaning rather than documentary ‘proof’. Perhaps by presenting these quartets in reverse order the Asasello-Quartett are diving ever deeper into the “merciless epoch of darkness” that Isaac Glikman wrote about (and is quoted in the liner) in the aftermath of the opera’s – and by extension the composer’s – State-prompted rejection. So by the time he wrote the String Quartet No.4 in D major Op.83 in 1949Shostakovich had little expectation of the work receiving a public performance due to the denouncement of his work in the Zhdanov Decree of 1948. Shostakovich sought to placate the purveyors of “Socialist Realism” with conformist scores such as the adjacent The Song of the Forests, Op.81, celebrating ‘The Great Stalinist Plan for Remaking Nature’. Unexpectedly, Stalin chose Shostakovich to represent the Soviet Union at the ‘Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace’ to be held in New York. There is a suggestion that while he was there he heard and enjoyed Bartók’s Sixth Quartet which prompted him on his return to start his own No.4. Emboldened by the apparent rehabilitation by Stalin he hoped to get the work publicly performed and so gave the score to the Beethoven Quartet in early 1950 to rehearse. A key feature of this work are Shostakovich’s use of “Jewish Intonations” which embodies not just certain melodic shapes and harmonies but also the sense of a duality of emotion with a smile masking inner sadness. With anti-semitism rife and the first rumblings of the “Doctors’ Plot” starting in 1948 it was at best a brave if not politically naive choice to write major scores based on elements of Jewish music and culture. The semi-private audience at the quartet’s first performance recognised this and persuaded Shostakovich to withdraw the work from public performance – its premiere occurring nine months after Stalin’s death in December 1953.
The performance here is supremely well paced with the music obviously leading towards the high-drama and protest of the closing (and longest) 4th movement Allegretto although this movement too is able to find a calm resolution. I like the way earlier in the work the Asasello-Quartett play with an almost casual ease following the natural arc of the music. This is one of the works the young Fitzwilliam Quartet played for the composer in 1972 and it strikes me as a particularly fine performance in their Decca cycle too.
The String Quartet No.3 in F major Op.73 was the last to be written before the creative fallout caused by the Zhdanov decrees and although it did receive a premiere it was soon withdrawn from public performance. The State expectation was for a “war” quartet to mark the victory over the Nazis in much the same way the Symphony No.9 was expected to be a celebratory work. Instead he wrote a five movement work full of extreme contrasts of mood and style and with as many questions asked as it answers. Again the great skill of the performance here is how these technical and emotional extremes cohere so effectively. Within a handful of bars the players go from an innocent little dance that tiptoes through the musical tulips to a stampeding nightmarish rollercoaster. But again presented with a kind of performance objectivity that leaves a listener to their own conclusions.
Further ambiguity – in all six quartets here – is offered both by the nominal major key signatures as well as the individual movement indications which often suggest a ‘moderate’ tempo; Allegretto, Moderato, Andante/Andantino with rare use of ‘molto’or ‘issimo’ to suggest an extreme even when passages or movements are just that. All six of these quartets are in major keys and classically standard ones at that. But Shostakovich’s music always revels in creating an expectation and then gleefully shattering them. That in part explains why the movement titles that he added to this work – to conform to the Party line of “war quartet” of “Calm unawareness of the future cataclysm”; “Rumblings of unrest and anticipation”; “The forces of war are unleashed”; “Homage to the dead”; and “The eternal question: why and to what purpose?” were quickly and quietly withdrawn.
The third movement Allegro non troppo is one of those brutal aggressive heavy-booted scherzi that the composer made uniquely his own. This is another movement which shows how the Asasello-Quartett is able to play with a real range of musical ‘identities’ in a wholly convincing and effective way. Here they match aggression and attack of the old Borodin Quartet recordings which still thrill by the sheer intensity of their playing. Against that the absolutely technically brilliant playing of the Yggdrasil Quartet on BIS feels almost flippant. The Asasello-Quartett find the ideal balance between the intensity of the Borodins and the technical skill of the Yggdrasil’s.
The String Quartet No.2 in A major Op.68 is another wartime work although one written before the gathering Zhadanov storm. Although one of Shostakovich’s longest quartets he wrote it in just 19 days and it was premiered in the same concert as his great Piano Trio No.2 which has the adjacent opus number of 67. There are some thematic associations too with Shostakovich using a folk-like melody from the Trio’s first movement as the source of the theme for the quartet’s closing variations. The work has echoes of both Russian and Jewish folk music with the former probably a reflection of the composer’s “patriotic duty” in the light of the ongoing War but as so often in his serious works, as opposed to his populist film or ballet scores, Shostakovich refracts these influences through a rather rigorous compositional lens. So while the opening Overture may start with an off-kilter violin dance with a squeezebox kind of accompaniment there is an unrelenting drive and musical rigour that lifts the music far above the expectations of a simple folksong derived work. No surprise that the Asasello-Quartett judge this stylistic balancing act to perfection. Another recurring feature of these performances is just how well the roles of all four instruments are gauged and balanced by both the players and the production team. Leader Rostislav Kozhevnikov is supremely technically accomplished and he has a musical personality to match as evidenced in the extended Recitative that forms the opening of the second movement but in no way are the other three players overshadowed. That said his completely poised but unmannered playing of the Romance where the violin 1 part is very much the leading voice is simply a delight.
But again ambiguity lies in wait around every musical corner. The third movement Valse – Allegro has an unsettling furtively nervous quality that undermines any expectation that the waltz title might create especially when it bursts out into another of these helter-skelter nightmare ‘chases’ before sinking back into a ghostly hush. The closing Theme with Variations is another tremendous movement where the various sections are clearly defined whilst also building across the entire near ten minute span. There is a manic intensity – regardless of dynamic or tempo – to much of the writing that is compellingly realised here. The concluding rather grand statement of the Russian theme in a clear A minor as opposed to the nominal major tonality of the work seems like a final nail in the coffin of this ‘patriotic’ work. Yet again Shostakovich evades the public pronouncements to produce a work that serves a deeper purpose. I must admit I had forgotten what an impressive work this second quartet it.
More questions abound with the String Quartet No.1 in C major Op.49. Shostakovich himself wrote; “Don’t expect to find special depth in this, my first quartet opus. In mood it is joyful, merry, lyrical. I would call it ‘spring-like’.” Yet it was written as Shostakovich’s life and career was emerging from the rubble of the Lady Macbeth disaster. It is the next major score after he attempted to rehabilitate himself with the Soviet State with his “reply to just criticism” in the Symphony No.5 in D minor Op.47. There are suggestions that his reference to being “spring-like” has more to do with a personal stylistic rebirth rather than this being a light and inconsequential work. Another quote from the composer supports this notion; “I began to write it without special ideas and feeling, I thought that nothing would come of it. After all, the quartet is one of the most difficult musical genres. I wrote the first page as a sort of original exercise in the quartet form”. Certainly there is a sense of this being more an exercise in absolute music, with the potential of four part writing being explored in an intellectual sense – there seems to be less ambiguity here than in the other quartets. For once the third movement Allegro molto feels playful rather than pursued and as such it receives a perfectly bright-eyed and nimble performance here. Likewise the skittish closing Allegro is dynamic but playfully so – another really tremendous performance here making light of the high technical demands. The ending here seems unequivocally positive compared to the ‘laboured’ or triumphal ending to Symphony 5 – depending on who you believe!
But this is not the end of this already generous set – the second disc running to 81:53. The Asasello-Quartett dig even further back into Shostakovich’s output to add the Two Pieces for String Quartet written around 1931. These are actually very attractive arrangements by the composer of other works; an Elegy which is derived from an aria in Lady Macbeth and then a pretty straight but very effective (and hard!) transcription of the xylophone Polka from The Golden Age. They make an excellent and entertainingly contrasted pair played with sorrowing weight in the former and tremendous cheeky wit in the latter. Of course there is a rather appealing sense of arrival by including the Lady Macbeth aria. The 6th Quartet was written after Shostakovich had completed the revision of the “failed” opera as Katerina Ismailova and of course in a musical ‘sliding-doors’ moment it might be argued that without the uproar caused by the original opera, Shostakovich’s career might have taken a very different path suggested by Symphony No.4 with less doubt, ambiguity or public/private compositions.
What is not in doubt is that the legacy of these fifteen quartets is one of the most important chamber music legacies of the 20th Century. As a body of quartet work they can reasonably be considered the most substantial – in terms of scale, number and quality – since Beethoven. Collectors will have individual preferences for ensembles they trust to be their guides. With this second pair of discs matching the technical quality and musical insights of the first, I have to say the Asasello-Quartett have become my personal favourite. The final two quartets can fit neatly onto a single CD but the hope must be that the Quartet will add at least the Piano Quintet plus the String Octet movements to their survey.
Remarkable music, remarkably performed.
Nick Barnard
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