Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich: String Quartets

The young Australian Orava Quartet, who studied for two years with the legendary Takács Quartet, make their recorded debut with this impressive Russian album. Their Tchaikovsky First Quartet is wonderfully lyrical with a near-perfect balance between the players, while the much more visceral Shostakovich Eighth, written at a traumatic time for the composer, has anger, desolation, pain, and resignation, powerfully characterised. Sitting between the two quartets come Rachmaninov’s gently songful Two Movements, elegantly and charmingly done. As a bonus, soprano Greta Bradman joins them—overdubbed to make a double quartet—for Rachmaninov’s “Vocalise.”