Music and Dance Reviews : Borodin Quartet Completes Shostakovich Cycle

The presentation of the 15 string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich, performed in six concerts at Ambassador Auditorium by the Borodin Quartet of Moscow, concluded on Sunday with the last two quartets.

Most emphatically right about Ambassador’s gloriously quixotic undertaking was that it exposed us to an important body of little-known music in performances that left absolutely nothing to be desired.

The Borodin Quartet, whatever it may be playing, should be required listening for all string quartets, experienced or tyro. The ensemble constitutes a single, unforced, organic and selfless voice the likes of which we have not heard since the Budapest Quartet of the early 1950s.

What proved problematic in retrospect was the presentation of the 15 quartets--hardly all masterpieces-- en bloc . Shostakovich’s expressive gamut is not a wide one and he is a creator of moods rather than an inventor of memorable themes. Thus, having to absorb his quartets in such large doses--often on first hearing--is next to impossible.

Another time--and it can’t come too soon--when the Borodin Quartet returns for an extended visit, we should be allowed to hear a few of the best Shostakovich quartets, one per program, in conjunction with more familiar material.

Still, better all the Shostakovich quartets than none.

The Quartet No. 14 (1973), with its prominent cello part--in Valentin Berlinsky’s hands it became the ideal of so many modern composers, that their knottiest music be played as if it were Mozart--is in three contrasting movements: fastish; slow; fastish/slow. Its mood is sad, but there is the occasional ray of muted light and in that final section a poignant hint of Mahlerian lyricism.

Quartet No. 15 (1974), however, is as bleak a farewell as any composer ever penned. In six connected slow movements, all in the same key of E-flat minor, and of some 35 minutes’ duration, it is a vast whisper pierced by an occasional shriek of pain. Not music we are likely--or willing--to encounter often.

The work was played by candlelight, perhaps to focus our attention (it worked for this listener) or simply as a gimmick enabling the players to conclude the cycle with the symbolic flourish of snuffing out the candles. It didn’t really matter.