Shostakovich and Contemporaries, Volume 3

This is the third installment in the Pacifica Quartet's highly acclaimed four-volume CD survey of the complete Shostakovich string quartets.

The Soviet Experience is the first Shostakovich quartet cycle to include works by other important composers of the Soviet era, adding variety and perspective to the listening experience. This series of recordings is produced and engineered by Grammy Award winner Judith Sherman.

The Soviet Experience Volume III features Shostakovich's String Quartets Nos. 9-12 from the 1960s. These quartets are paired with Mieczyslaw Weinberg's adventurous, symphonic-scaled String Quartet No. 6 of 1946, an inventive work once banned in the Soviet Union for being ahead of its time. Weinberg was a close friend and colleague of Shostakovich.

The Pacifica's previous installment, The Soviet Experience Volume II, received an extraordinary reception from critics. The Telegraph of London said, "The playing is nothing short of phenomenal, bringing new dimensions of interpretative depth and a subtle fusion of intensity and clarity... When the series is complete, it looks set to be the one to own."