Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Living under the shadow of the Eighth

San Diego is in the middle of the Mainly Mozart Festival, which has organized a year-long celebration of the 250th Mozart anniversary. Contrary to its name, Romantic, Baroque, and even contemporary works pop up during the festival, although Mozart compositions always anchor the programs. This Sunday, the Fine Arts String Quartet concert snuck Shostakovich onto their program of Mozart and Beethoven. The concert was held in the ballroom of a former hotel, El Cortez, now converted into pricy and trendy condos and/or apartments in the booming Downtown area of San Diego. While the media goes on and on about Mozart, I haven't seen anyone celebrating the Shostakovich centennial, so the Fine Arts Quartet performance of the 7th Quartet acted as a sort of under-the-radar tribute.

I'm not a big fan of the Shostakovich Quartet cycle. I've always admired the 8th and the 15th quartets, but the others never made much of an impression on me. But after hearing the 7th Quartet, I was impressed enough to check out the score, and this elicits even further admiration.

Here's an excerpt from my review at www.sandiego.com:

The surprise on the concert took the form of Shostakovich's String Quartet no. 7, op. 108, written the same year as his most frequently performed quartet, the justly celebrated Eighth String Quartet, op. 110.

Perhaps living under the shadow of the Eighth is detrimental to the Seventh; I have to confess ignorance of the work. It revealed itself to be tightly written and engaging. None of the musical elephantiasis that some of Shostakovich's works are at times prone to (the most egregious example being the Seventh Symphony) are apparent in the Seventh Quartet; its 3 movements clocked in at around 13 minutes. Within this brief (for Shostakovich) span, the composer takes a three-note motive heard at the onset, and turns it upside, elongates it, truncates it, extends it, and in general permeates the outer movements with it. The first movement is a kind of quiet, unsettling gallop, and the last is a whirlwind demonic scherzo interrupted by an even quicker dysfunctional, broken-down waltz. In between these two brilliantly constructed movements (the finale magically takes the listener back to the closing measures of the first movement) lies a dolorous, spare Lento (over half of it consists of only two melodic lines).

The Fine Arts Quartet performed the Seventh Quartet with appropriate conviction, depicting its mystery, mourning, and fury.

For the complete review, go here.

posted by Christian Hertzog 6/14/2006