NIKOLAI MYASKOVSKY (1881-1950): Complete String Quartets, Vol. 3 - No. 7 in F, Op. 55 and No. 8 in F Sharp Minor, Op. 59.

Catalogue Number: 03J071
Label: Northern Flowers
Reference: NF/PMA 9952
Format: CD
Price: $17.98
Description: Dating from 1941, the seventh quartet was written in the Caucasus (where artists were evacuated as the Nazis neared Moscow) at the same time as the Symphony No. 23. Whereas the latter made free use of actual North Caucasian song and dance material, the quartet uses only one quote, in its slow movement, while Myaskovsky created his own themes elsewhere but under the influence of the surrounding folk material. From 1942, the Eighth is an elegy for a dead friend with a long Adagio surrounded by an elegiac Allegro moderato and an Allegro drammatico which ends with a melancholic coda. Taneyev Quartet.