The idea behind this disc is a good one; two major chamber works, both written during the Second World War, yet not normally brought together. Shostakovich’s Trio, with its brooding, bitter sense of tragic fate, and Messiaen’s Quartet, exuberant and ecstatic in its embrace of eternal Christian values, come from totally different musical and psychological worlds. Their conjunction could be a thrilling one for the listener, but neither of these performances is as definitive as might be hoped.
The Shostakovich scores in its avoidance of exaggeration. The polished playing never sinks into superficiality, and the great finale builds well to a powerful climax. Yet there is not quite enough of that stark, raw emotional atmosphere which is vital for the music’s full impact to register, and which the finest (usually Russian) performances achieve – most recently, that by Elisabeth Leonskaja and members of the Borodin Quartet on Teldec.
There are still greater problems of style and empathy with the Messiaen. Olli Mustonen, a tower of strength in the more conventionally virtuosic passages, seems baffled by the sheer uneventfulness of his accompanying role in the marvellous arias for cello and violin which form the core of the Quartet’s mystical message. In the cello movement, Mustonen and Steven Isserlis seem to be in different musical worlds, and the closing violin and piano duet has a spirit more edgy than sublime. The recording (made in London’s Henry Wood Hall) is less well balanced than that of the Shostakovich (made at Abbey Road), and only Michael Collins, in the solo clarinet movement (No. 3), seems fully at home with all aspects of the assignment. The version on Collins Classics therefore remains my first choice. '