Postcard From Nalchik - Quartets By Haydn, Prokofi

Edinburgh Quartet

Haydn: String Quartet Op.33 No.2; Prokofiev: String Quartet No.2; Shostakovich: String Quartet No.8 - Postcard from Nalchik

On this release by the Edinburgh Quartet, noted specialists in contemporary repertoire, the group delves into chamber music's glorious past. Here, two of the repertoire's most familiar works are linked by the less commonly programmed but equally virtuosic String Quartet No.2 by Prokofiev. The work portrays a Russian composer writing home from the geographical margins just as 150 years earlier Haydn had looked outwards, to the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia and her husband the future Tsar, to whom the Op.33 set was dedicated. If the Prokofiev displays energy and folk-inflected vigor, Shostakovich demands – and receives – total expressive commitment in a work which, the composer darkly suggested to a friend, was written in his own memory.

Price: $28.98