"String Quartets Nos.1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11 : Jerusalem Quartet (2CD)"

This mid-priced HmGold collection of String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich features recordings by the highly acclaimed Jerusalem Quartet from 2005 and 2007. Shostakovich's 15 symphonies and 15 string quartets rank him with Beethoven in terms of both the magnitude of the output and it's depth and originality. The quartets were Shostakovich's most personal works. Publicly buffeted by the capricious winds of the Stalinist government, in his quartets he used music to express his deepest and most personal feelings. This set provides an excellent overview of Shostakovich's quartets, spanning from his first efforts in the genre to examples from his late period, where the music's colors and spirit are imbued with a dark melancholy.