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Borodin Quartet
Russian Legacy

Borodin Quartet Review

Rosalind Appleby, The Western Australian

5 March 2010

Perth Concert Hall

The icy bleakness of Dimitri Shostakovich's string quartets came as a shock after the sticky heat of a Perth summer night. Could this music depicting such a foreign landscape have anything to say to Western Australians

As Russia's pre-eminent ensemble, the Borodin Quartet slid through the chromatic dissonance of Shostakovich's Fourth Quartet, two things became apparent: great beauty can be found in dark music, and Shostakovich's music is vitally relevant because he traverses the landscape of the heart.

The desperate determination of the plodding scherzo and the tearful joy of the Klezmer melody in the finale are expressions of universal emotions and the Perth Concert Hall audience were held spellbound.

Last century the original Borodin quartet line-up rehearsed the Shostakovich quartets with the composer and, watching them perform, there was a sense of witnessing a precious moment in history.

How much the music has changed over the decades is hard to fathom but their infamous warm, grainy sound - the stamp of the Moscow Conservatory - fitted like a glove. When they brought that beauty to the tragic 13th String Quartet the despairing music with its clashing dissonance became something to savour.

Igor Naidin's elegiac viola playing set the tone, with guttural cello tones from Vladimir Balshin and pristine contributions from first violinist Ruben Aharonian.

After that intensity the sweet melodies of Alexander Borodin's second quartet sounded like "cafe music", as a gentleman in front of me observed. The tonal harmony resonated with the calmness that comes when chords are perfectly in tune.

Sixty-five years of chamber music-making were filtered into this concert and, interestingly, it wasn't perfect. The second violin almost forgot to remove his mute before the start of the 13th Quartet and Balshin smudged a note and had bow wobble.

But people didn't want their money back. We had experienced and understood a slice of Russia's soul.

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