Shostakovich String Quartets 7–13

Finally, a Shostakovich CD by the Asasello-Quartett! The internationally successful and award-winning ensemble has long been intensively engaged with the 15 works of the great Russian composer and is now embarking on a complete recording. The new GENUIN release of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartets Nos. 7–13 now kicks off the series. According to the booklet for the production, “Love, death and dearest people – these are the themes of the works heard on this double CD.” And the Asasello-Quartett spans the breadth of interpretation just as broadly as the variety of themes outlined here: with poignancy, elegance, and virtuosity – a whole world of its own!

Deutschlandfunk
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the composer's death, Ingo Dorfmüller reviewed the complete recording by the Asasello Quartet and presented it in the Musik-Panorama program on August 11, 2025.

Deutschlandfunk Kultur
Rainer Pöllmann spoke with Justyna Sliwa and Rostislav Kozhevnikov about the complete recording of all of Shostakovich's string quartets. The interview can be heard on the program “Tonart” from 05 August 2025.

nmz
"With this edition, the Asasello Quartet delivers an impressive testimony to its skills. All extremes of the music are played out with relentless tension: with resignation and exuberance, desperate defiance and powerless forlornness, tender lyricism and brutal harshness, vulnerability and rugged ferocity." Review by Rainer Nonnenmann, 01.07.2025

DSCH Journal
"The Asasellos avoid over-emoting, putting their trust in the music and thereby are convincing." Review by John Leman Riley, July 2024

Classica
"By switching effortlessly and consistently from a sarcastic atmosphere to an epic gesture, the Asasellos demonstrate an impressive immersion in the composer's oppressive world. Two previously unpublished fragments from the same period skillfully round off the whole. This deserves a sequel." Review by Jean-Michel Molkhou, issue May 2024

Diapason
"The interpretations are committed, virtuosic, biting, profound and respect the special features of the individual works." Review by Patrick Szersnovicz, issue March 2024

MusicWeb International
The album has been chosen by MusicWeb International as Recording of the month in January 2024.

Clic Musique
"The quartet expresses all the genius of these pieces with biting, heartbreaking, desperate, wild and savage sounds with a wonderful clarity." Review by Gérard Martin

Fono Forum
"Motifs and textures are dissected with a scalpel as if under a microscope, to the delight of the analyst, linear structures are really played independently, chord clusters are taken cluster-like." Review by Michael Kube, 2/2024 issue

MusicWeb International
"The playing is genuinely exceptional in technical, expressive and musical terms. The technical recording too is very fine." Review by Nick Barnard, January 22, 2024

Pizzicato
"The four musicians open their complete recording with the middle quartets. In doing so, they enter into a very personal cosmos of the composer. [...] They succeed in exploring the breadth of compositional means of expression to their limits.." Review by Uwe Krusch, November 7, 2023