Borodin Quartet review – fierce and formidable

Wigmore Hall, London
The Russian masters of chamber music marked their 70th anniversary with a formidable start to their Shostakovich and Beethoven cycles

This formidable concert marked the start of a complete cycle of Shostakovich and Beethoven quartets in a Wigmore Hall series over the next two years. The Borodin Quartet, who are celebrating their 70th anniversary, remain the gold standard for Russian chamber music and the Russian approach. And, sure enough, as soon as they put bow to string in Shostakovich’s 10th Quartet in A flat, from 1964, one felt as though this was very much the way the composer heard the piece.

Like the other two quartets in this programme, the 10th begins sparely and sombrely, and at a meditative pulse. The Borodins gripped the piece from the start, with the sinister little viola triplets emphasising the troubled nature of the dark reflections in the other strings. The playing was rich-toned and dramatic, in ways that seemed authentically Russian, and the technique was formidable.

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