Shostakovich: Quartet No. 3 & Piano Quintet

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The Belcea Quartet’s first Shostakovich release offers much food for thought. Their insightful performance of the Third Quartet fully encapsulates the work’s war-scarred anguish…Anderszewski... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2018, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 20th Apr 2018
Catalogue No: ALPHA360
Label: Alpha
Length: 69 minutes

Presto Editor's Choice

April 2018
Record Review

5th May 2018

Recording of the Week

Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57

Work length34:39

$7.05

$10.65

$14.25

Piotr Anderszewski, Belcea Quartet

I. Prelude (Lento)

Track length4:46

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

II. Fugue (Adagio)

Track length11:34

$2.05

$3.05

$4.05

III. Scherzo (Allegretto)

Track length3:37

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

IV. Intermezzo (Lento)

Track length7:02

$1.50

$2.30

$3.05

V. Finale (Allegretto)

Track length7:40

$1.50

$2.30

$3.05

Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73

Work length34:28

$6.55

$9.85

$13.25

Belcea Quartet

I. Allegretto

Track length7:27

$1.50

$2.30

$3.05

II. Moderato con moto

Track length5:37

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

III. Allegro non troppo

Track length4:12

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

IV. Adagio

Track length6:00

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

V. Moderato

Track length11:12

$2.05

$3.05

$4.05

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About

Formed in 1994 at the Royal College of Music in London, the Belcea Quartet has recorded the complete string quartets of Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók and Britten. For this new Alpha release it has chosen two works by one of the leading composers of twentieth-century chamber music, Dmitri Shostakovich.

The Quartet no.3, of historic importance, was initially censured by the Soviet regime, then revised by Shostakovich for its first performance in 1946; the refined playing of the Belcea Quartet brings out all its contours. The Piano Quintet is among its composer’s most famous works and significantly contributed to his success on the international scene and with the Soviet authorities. The Belcea Quartet performs it in the company of the Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski: the result is a musical encounter at the highest level of excellence.

Reviews

August 2018

The Belcea Quartet’s first Shostakovich release offers much food for thought. Their insightful performance of the Third Quartet fully encapsulates the work’s war-scarred anguish…Anderszewski works miracles with Shostakovich’s often spare two-part piano writing, bringing out a greater wealth of colours than is normally the case.

July 2018

They look at the Quintet with fresh eyes and that is evident from the outset. The pianist’s opening soliloquy has power and a directness of emotion, which is matched by the Belcea…The Third String Quartet is every bit as successful…The absolute certainty of ensemble is one of the joys of the Belcea, but just as important is their fearlessness, and their reactivity, capturing the music’s emotional shifts unerringly…A tremendous addition to the Shostakovich discography.

April 2018

The Belceas summon a big, baleful, quasi-orchestral sound for the early stretches of the Piano Quintet, followed by playing of immense delicacy in the bleak second-movement fugue; the scherzo crackles with electricity thanks to percussive pizzicati and rasping martellato, and Anderszewski matches them with sonorities that could almost emanate from a prepared piano.

13th May 2018

Anderszewski’s gleaming accounts of the fast movements are tempered with a prelude and fugue of hushed intensity. This is playing to rival the classic account by Richter and the Borodin Quartet

Videos

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Shostakovich: Quartet No. 3 & Piano Quintet

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