The fifth and penultimate volume in the
Sorrel Quartet's complete recordings of the string quartets of
Shostakovich includes the lyrical and energetic String Quartet No. 5 and the morbid and despairing Fifteenth and final quartet. As before, the
Sorrel plays as four distinct voices blended in one expressive ensemble and, as before, it expresses both the strength of his thinking and the depths of his feeling. The attenuated ecstasy of the Andantino at the center of the Fifth is quite the most beautiful and the most sensual ever recorded and the structure of the closing movement is as cogent and dramatic as the best of the Russian quartet's performances. The etiolated agony of the auster fugue at the start of the String Quartet No. 15 is not quite the most despairing ever recorded -- it protests too passionately for that appellation -- but as the Fifteenth progresses through all the stages of dying, the
Sorrel's interpretation only protests the more passionately, closing with the excruciating death rattles of the Adagio molto.Chandos' sound is clear, close, and warm.