The String Quartets Vol 1

The first CD in a series that will eventually comprise the complete string quartets by Shostakovich with the Flemish Rubio String Quartet: four immensely gifted players who formed the Quartet in March 1991, and after an intense period of preparation made their official debut at the beginning of 1993, being rapidly praised for the artistry, enthusiasm and dedication that they evinced. Shostakovich was above all a composer of ideas; in none of his large and varied oeuvre is this so apparent as in the series of fifteen string quartets that he began in 1938 and that he continued over of next 37 years until his death on 9 August 1975. On this CD there are the youthful and rather sunny First Quartet, the Fourth Quartet written in 1949 in which Shostakovich used jewish themes, and the intense and extremely moving Eighth Quartet, dedicated to the memory of the victims of fascism and war.