The Borodin Quartet will be celebrating their 70th anniversary in 2015. The current members of the Quartet are Ruben Aharonian, Sergey Lomovsky, Igor Naidin and Vladimir Balshin. The group is considered to be one of the world’s most eminent and revered string quartets.
Their anniversary sees them perform all over the world with dates in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rotterdam, Tokyo, Istanbul, Montreal, Vancouver, Amsterdam, Warsaw, London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Berlin and Vienna to name a few.
No history of Russian music in the post-war period would be complete without a significant discussion of the Borodin Quartet. The original ensemble formed in 1945 and subsequently developed an enduring culture of the most refined and eloquent quartet playing imaginable. The group’s legendary reputation rests on its interpretations of great monuments of the chamber music repertoire and their 70th anniversary celebratory programmes will feature the string quartets of Beethoven, Shostakovich Tchaikovsky and Borodin. They played for Shostakovich almost all of his works personally, to receive his supervision and advice. Now, almost seventy years later, they come from a new generation, but have remained true to their roots and to the artistic excellence and integrity that has always been a hallmark of this astonishing ensemble. In the words of The Telegraph:
“Sitting in the Wigmore Hall, listening to the Quartet play Shostakovich, it was impossible to resist an uncanny sense of being taken back to the root of something. You could say this was just the magic effect of a near-mythical reputation, but there is something special in the Borodin Quartet’s sound which would persuade even an innocent listener. It’s the refusal to exaggerate, and a pearly, immaculate quality in the balance…enough to put this concert in a class of its own.”