Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartets in Concert April 21-30 Are Not To Be Missed
Presented by Cleveland Chamber Music Society at Cleveland Museum of Art
Originally published in Russian, on Russian Magazine Cleveland, March 2025
The great 20th century Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was prolific – he wrote symphonies, ballets, operas and much more. But it is his 15 string quartets that are both a personal diary and a reflection of Russian history. Shostakovich composed these quartets over half a century, tracing Soviet times from Stalin to Khrushchev to Brezhnev.
On April 21-30, music lovers in Cleveland will have the rare opportunity to hear this cycle performed live. The Cleveland Chamber Music Society, in celebration of its 75th anniversary season, presents the complete Shostakovich string quartets over five evenings, performed by the Jerusalem Quartet. This is a remarkable feat and it’s never been done before in Cleveland.
The performances are April 21, 22, 23, 29 & 30 at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art (11150 East Blvd, Cleveland, OH). Each concert features three quartets, and there will be a pre-concert lecture by James Wilding at 6:30 pm each evening.
Praised by BBC Magazine as "an absolute triumph," the Jerusalem Quartet is a regular and beloved guest on the world’s great concert stages. Recent appearances include a Beethoven quartet cycle at Wigmore Hall in London; a Bartok cycle at the Salzburg Festival; their annual String Quartet seminar in Crans Montana Switzerland, and a residency at the Jerusalem Academy of Music.
We spoke with members of the Jerusalem Quartet about this monumental occasion.
How has the quartet prepared for this series of concerts?
This is our third time in 30 years performing the Shostakovich cycle around the world. These opuses are rooted deeply in our minds and souls. This time, the whole preparation process focused on what can or should be performed differently for creating an even stronger message, character, and atmosphere.
This is the first time the Shostakovich Quartet Cycle will be performed in its entirety in Cleveland. What do you think the audience gets from hearing all 15 quartets in a short span of time?
Coming back to your cultural city to perform this great, maybe the most important, quartet cycle of the 20th century over 10 days makes this project intense both for the public and for us. To experience this cycle chronologically in such a short period of time creates a much stronger, deeper, and more powerful impact on the audiences. In every piece, you get closer to the Shostakovich spirit, you receive more easily his ideas, you start to understand better his musical language. In a way, you get transported to a different world of sonority and atmosphere. Shostakovich wrote these quartets over a span of nearly a half century, from the 1930s to the 1970s.
How does this body of music reflect world history?
For more than five decades, Shostakovich was the foremost composer active in the former Soviet Union. The only possible way to succeed in making such an incredible career in such complicated times is living a double life, and that’s why it is so important in Shostakovich’s music to be able to receive "hidden” messages, to read between the notes and lines. His symphonies, for example, were mostly created as a reaction to major national events, and his quartets are the most personal and intimate pages of his life’s diary. Most of the quartets were dedicated to his family members, closest friends, and colleagues. One can also feel the development in the composer’s writing, which mirrors the development in the history of the Soviet Union.
2025 marks 30 years since the founding of the Jerusalem Quartet. What’s the secret to maintaining a strong bond as an ensemble?
Being “married” for 30 years is always challenging, and do not forget that in a string quartet, there are four partners. Our love and dedication to this magical ensemble, and to the endless repertoire from great masters beginning with the father of string quartets, Joseph Haydn, have kept us together all this time.
The Jerusalem Quartet has a long history of performing in Cleveland, but this is its first time at the CMA. What is most exciting about this debut?
We have performed many, many times in Cleveland in the past decades. This kind of a cycle debuting now evokes special emotions, and we are looking forward to presenting this amazing music to the old and new audiences of Cleveland.
Tickets are available online at ClevelandChamberMusic.org or by phone at (216) 291-2777. Single tickets are $40 for adults ($35 seniors, $5 students), with package-deals available starting at $60.