Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 3, Nos. 13-15

Shostakovich's last three quartets are not comfortable music. Written between 1970 and 1974, as his health was collapsing and his late style had shed nearly everything public and performative, they are chamber music as private testimony: stripped back, formally severe, and marked by an acute awareness of approaching death. This third volume from Cuarteto Casals completes their cycle, and the playing is exactly what this music demands.

Sadly, the recording is another matter.