Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) – String Quartet No.1, in C major, opus 49 (1938)
- Moderato, 2. Moderato, 3. Allegro molto, 4. Allegro
Performers: Quatuor Danel
Nikolaj Mjaskowski (1881-1950) – String Quartet No.5, in E-flat, opus 47 (1938/39)
2. Allegro tranquillo, 2. Molto vivo, sussurando, 3. Andante semplice, 4. Allegro molto e con brio
Performers: Taneyev String Quartet
Arthur Lourié (1892-1966) – Suite for string quartet (1924) (Third Quartet)
3. Hymn, 4. Marche funèbre
Performers: Leipziger Streichquartett
Shostakovich called his First String Quartet, in C major, opus 49, from 1938, “spring-like”. It is akin to a modern Haydn, with simple melodies, but also a signature all its own: sometimes gloomy, somewhat detached, yes shy and here and there made merry.
The former avant-garde composer Nikolaj Myaskowski, with his Fifth String Quartet, in e-cl.t., opus 47, could not escape the pressure of the party and its demands on composers. The result is a beautiful and modest quartet. Everything here is equally lilting and expressive. There is no hint of the icy cold at his home (he wrote the playful scherzo on 26 December 1938 in the freezing cold) nor in a political sense.
By the 1920s, Lourié had already arrived in France and wrote a neo-Baroque Third string quartet entirely to the taste of the time. It seems that Stravinsky was looking over Lourié’s back when he composed his Suite (for that is its official title).
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
