By Elliot Mandel @Cello_guy
In 2011, the Pacifica Quartet completed its concert cycle of all fifteen string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich, a monumental series of performances that gave Chicago audiences one of the most memorable concert events of the season. Following the live cycle, the Pacifica set out to record the quartets on Chicago’s Cedille Records under the heading “The Soviet Experience.” In addition to the complete fifteen quartets, the recording cycle includes Shostakovich contemporaries. The fourth and final volume is just out and finds the Pacifica in top form as it explores the final three quartets, along with Alfred Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3.
Shostakovich dedicated his 11th – 14th quartets to the individual members of the Beethoven Quartet, with whom he was closely associated. The 13th is thus dedicated to the quartet’s violist, Vadim Borisovksy, and features prominent use of the viola throughout the single-movement work. The Pacifica’s violist, Masumi Per Rostad, channels this deep personal connection, savoring the opening and closing viola solos with dark and radiant playing.
The 14th – dedicated to Beethoven Quartet cellist Sergei Shirinsky – begins in an altogether different mood from the agitated lamentations of its predecessor. Shostakovich evokes a whispy childlike nostalgia carried by the cello. Pacifica cellist Brandon Vamos throws full-voiced playing into the treacherous and exposed solos, but his tone sweetens when joined by first violinist Simin Ganatra in a passionate, if intentionally saccharine, duet.
Throughout his career, Shostakovich celebrated his musical influences, often quoting or borrowing ideas from Bach to Mahler; he was also fond of reworking his own previous material into other works. In the 15th quartet, he combines structural inspiriation from Beethoven, Schubert, and Haydn with Russian liturgical music for a powerful six-movement elegy. The Pacifica’s performance embraces the ancient incantations and wails when the music is at its most aggressive. Shostakovich’s writing recalls his own Symphony No. 6, referencing a funereal march that brings the 15th to a silent conclusion.
Rounding out the double album is Alfred Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3, a work that reflects Shostakovich’s late quartets and incorporates the Romantic masters in form and theme. The Pacifica sounds like an ensemble twice its size with the giant chords and lush distortion of the first movement, and brings a sense of chaos to the second movement’s shattered scenery and jarring harmonies of the closing movement.
The fifteen Shostakovich quartets are not material made for easy listening; they are emotionally expansive, terrifying in their introspection, and deeply cathartic. The final three quartets are perhaps the most difficult of the cycle to take in, blending meandering solos with fleeting episodic moments. Written in distant keys, the late quartets present certain technical challenges for the musicians and an unsettling experience for the audience. The listener is richly rewarded, however, by the Pacifica’s recording of this immense cycle. As a whole, the four volumes of “The Soviet Experience” are essential listening for Shostakovich lovers. The Pacifica has firmly established itself among the great Shostakovich interpreters, bringing clarity, urgency and a pure sense of the composer’s voice to every note.
