SHOSTAKOVICH. String Quartets—No. 3 in F major, Op. 73; No. 7 in F sharp minor, Op. 108; No. 11 in F minor, Op. 122. Fine Arts Quartet (Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, vns; Jerry Horner, va; Wolfgang Laufer, vc). Ades/ Conifer 0 0 14161-2 (57 minutes: DDD). Quartet No. 3—selected comparisons:

Fitzwilliam Qt (4/89) 421 475-2DH

Brodsky Qt (6/90) 246 009-2

Quartet No. 7—selected comparisons:

Borodin Qt (10/87) CDC7 47507-2

Brodsky Qt (5/90) 244 919-2

Quartet No. 11—selected comparisons:

Borodin Qt (9/88) CDC7 49268-2

Coull Qt (6/89) CDDCA631

The Fine Arts Quartet was founded in 1946 and had an extensive and adventurous recording career throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Its original members have now all retired, but their replacement was a gradual process, and what we might think of as the Fine Arts Quartet Mk II sounds in this excellently clean recording audibly like a close relative of its former self. It's recognizably American in sound, by which I mean athletically virtuoso, very slightly lean of timbre and with an almost soloistic expressiveness from each of its members. I find the expression a bit overdone at times, to be honest: Shostakovich is a profoundly emotional composer, but open violinistic eloquence isn't always the manner that best serves him. A poignant or cantabile line is apt to be phrased by these players as though it were by Borodin, with great beauty and refinement, indeed with, if anything, too much of both qualities.

Their attack is vital, their line firm and their responsiveness always admirably alert, but the leader's frequent little scoops and the pretty general use of what one might call an all-purpose vibrato tend to understate the music: the worrying strangeness of the Seventh Quartet's opening movement (a threnody too numbed to raise its voice) needs more quietness and pallor of tone to emerge fully; the fraught emotional burden of the finale of the Third Quartet is pre-empted by too soupy a cantabile earlier on.

A pity, for there is much to admire in the Fine Arts Quartet's playing, much that I would like to hear in music to which their style is more appropriate. Not many of the performances listed above for comparison could exceed these in virtuosity, but all of them, I believe, are closer to Shostakovich's expressive voice. M.E.O.