Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op. 22

Featuring the outstanding State Borodin Quartet.

Includes the founder members Rostislav Dubinsky & Yaroslav Alexandrov violin together with Valtin Berlinsky cello.

Rostropovich (the original cellist), performs in Souvenir de Florence.

"It is a terrible irony" wrote Vladimir Ashkenazy, "that so much suffering and torment bequeathed us so much wonderful music".

Following the death, in 1875, of Ferdinand Laub, the violinist who had led the first performances of his two previous quartets, Tchaikovsky experienced a creative surge that led to the third quartet. After an enthusiastic reception to a performance in Moscow, Tchaikovsky said: "I think I am all written-out … I've begun to repeat myself and can't come up with anything new".

If it was not painful to see a creator if his calibre be torn apart by constant lack of self-confidence, it would almost be ironic, since this is probably the strongest and most intense of his quartets – the masterpiece of the genre.

Tchaikovsky was a composer of music demonstrating profound emotions, a fact which comes through on this recording. The musicians of the Klenke Quartet prove themselves to be the ideal conduit of Tchaikovsky’s personal, almost confessional messages, combining clarity and precision with bright colours and intensity in their playing.

The Ruysdael quartet was formed in 1996, when all members were studying at the Conservatory in the Hague. They have studied with many well known quartets, including the Amadeus and the Alban Berg Quartet. They are regularly invited to take part in festivals and masterclasses.

Tchaikovsky wrote relatively little chamber music. Three string quartets, the Piano Trio and the Sextet form the bulk of his chamber music, and all the quartets date from before his 40th year. He had attempted a quartet as early as 1865, and the expansive opening movement is all that remains, and it is included in this set.

The Quartet No.1 created quite a stir at its premiere in 1871, not only because the audience included the great novelist Turgenev, but also due to the fact that it was actually the first string quartet by a Russian composer. The second movement, Andante cantabile, has become one of the composer’s best loved tunes, and when Tolstoy heard it some five years after the premiere he was moved to tears. Interestingly Tchaikovsky used a traditional folk song tune that has some especially trite words about a drunk tempting a maiden to bed! The Third Quartet has a grief-stricken slow movement with a specially memorable melody, written as a tribute to the Czech violinist Ferdinand Laub who had died in 1875. Laub had taken part in the premieres of the First and Second Quartets and had become a close friend of the composer. The great String Sextet dates from 1890, just after Tchaikovsky had completed his opera The Queen of Spades – he was exhausted and under great pressure. Although written when the composer was in Florence, the work is a truly Russian one, with little or no Italian influences. This 2CD set is rounded off with some early works for string combinations, all dating from 1873/4. They are all delightfully melodic and charming.

Following on from their critically acclaimed versions of the Glazunov, Grechaninov and Lex van Delden quartets, the extremely talented Utrecht String Quartet here perform Tchaikovsky.