Shostakovich's First Quartet is a short and sweet affair in radiant C major. A trifle, however, it is not. The work already points forward to the later quartets, such as the Ninth. The composer himself thought it was 'spring-like'. It doesn't seem to make sense to write something innocuous like that in 1938, at the height of Stalinist terror and in the wake of vicious ideological attack. Or maybe it does. Maxim was just born. And likely the composer was engaged in a process of Innere Emigration. Back to whatever serenity remains in one's own core.
I listened to three versions: the Brodsky Quartet (Teldec, 1989), the Fitzwilliam Quartet (Decca, around 1976) and the Eder Quartet (Naxos, 1994). There is no doubt that the Fitzwilliam is head and shoulders above the rest. The Eders are docile and seem to lack ideas. The Brodskys have too many ideas but lack a coherent vision to hold them together. The Fitzwilliam Quartet shower the work with delicate luminosity. The tone is rich, mellow, luxuriant. Under their hands the emotional complexities of particularly the first and last movements emerge. The introductory Moderato, with its long lines, assumes a poignancy that goes straight to the heart. It almost turns into a lamento. Oh God, that Russian summer of 1938 ... (Wikipedia: ... by 1938, however, the oppression had become so extensive that it was damaging the infrastructure, economy and even the armed forces of the Soviet state, prompting Stalin to wind the purge down. In September, Beria was appointed head of the Main Administration of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD, and in November he succeeded Yezhov as NKVD head (Yezhov himself was executed in 1940). The NKVD itself was then purged, with half its personnel replaced by Beria loyalists, many of them from the Caucasus). The finale is boisterous (a study almost of the Sixth Symphony's finale) but once in a while the Fitzwilliams flash their teeth in anger. The 1976 Decca recording is excellent.
It's quiet around the Fitzwilliam Quartet these days. At least they don't seem to play in the top league anymore. I looked it up and they still exist, after more than 40 years, and seem to have made some recordings recently on the Linn label. Their sympathetic website gives a good overview of their repertoire. Alan George, viola, is the only founding member still in place (since 1968). The quartet acquired renown because of their affiliation with the late Shostakovich who entrusted the British premiere of his last three quartets to them. His fifteen quartets still belong to the core of their repertoire.
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