Shostakovich and Contemporaries, Volume 1

The Pacifica Quartet, which attracted a great deal of attention for its 2010–11 performances of Dmitri Shostakovich’s complete string quartets in New York and Chicago and at the University of Illinois, is reprising that cycle with a series of studio recordings for Cedille Records. The first in a four-part series, The Soviet Experience: String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich and his Contemporaries, Volume I, available September 27, includes Shostakovich’s String Quartets No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 92; No. 6 in G major, Op. 101; No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108; and No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110; and Nikolai Miaskovsky’s String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, Op. 86 (Cedille Records CDR 90000 127).  The Pacifica’s Shostakovich cycle for Cedille is unique for including quartets by other notable Soviet-era composers. Future installments will offer Prokofiev’s String Quartet No. 2, Moises Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 6, and Alfred Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3 as companions to the Shostakovich quartets.