The Soviet Experience: The Complete String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich

The Pacifica Quartet’s internationally acclaimed four-volume, eight-CD survey of Dmitri Shostakovich’s string quartets on Cedille Records has been released as a boxed set. The monumental recordings are notable for including quartets by some of the composer’s most significant Soviet-era contemporaries. The series, produced and engineered by multiple Grammy Award-winner Judith Sherman, was originally released in installments between September 2011 and November 2013. The Soviet Experience received critical praise from the outset, with The New York Times citing the Pacifica Quartet’s “electrifying interpretations.” At the midway point, BBC Music magazine said the cycle “is already shaping up as definitive.” More recently, the UK’s Financial Times characterized the overall project as “an enthralling series” played with “lucidity, intensity and consistency.”