The String Quartets Vol 3

Volume 3 of Globe's recording of the complete String Quartets by Dmitry Shostakovich, performed by the brilliant Rubio String Quartet from Belgium. Volumes 1 and 2 met already with great critical approval and also the sales were pretty good, considering the difficulty of this kind of repertoire. The Quartets recorded here were written in 1960, 1964 and 1968 respectively, number 7 as an in memoriam for the composer's first wife, who had died of an incurable illness caused by radiation in December 1954; it is also the most concise of all of Shostakovich's string quartets. No. 9 is a work that already points towards his later preoccupation with silence and extremely slow music which is found in the third quartet recorded here: No. 12 in which he raised simplicity to the level of an article of faith.