Shostakovich: String Quartets (Complete)

The Soviet Experience, the much-lauded Pacifica Quartet’s acclaimed survey of Dmitri Shostakovich’s complete string quartets, is unique among Shostakovich quartet cycles for including quartets by some of the composer’s most significant Soviet-era contemporaries: Nikolai Miaskovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Alfred Schnittke. Every volume has garnered praise in the U.S. and internationally. “The excellent Pacifica Quartet…offers electrifying interpretations.” – The New York Times (Vol. 1) “…the Pacifica’s Shostakovich cycle already is shaping up as definitive, even in a field stocked with…formidable Russian contenders.” – The Classical Review (Vol. 2) “…the series “is turning out to be one of the most riveting of recent years…Pacifica’s Shostakovich cycle is already shaping up as definitive.” – BBC Music Magazine (Vol. 3) “The final installment of the Pacifica Quartet’s Shostakovich string quartet cycle…is as much an artistic and technical triumph as the three previous releases in the series.” – Chicago Tribune “An enthralling series….The Pacificas maintain the standard of their previous releases, translating Shostakovich’s valedictory language : ghostly, playful, liturgical, anything but serene : with lucidity, intensity and consistency.” – Financial Times (UK)