Album: Dmitri Shostakovich, The Soviet Experience – Pacifica Quartet (Cedille Records)

In the second instalment of their recording of all 15 Shostakovich string quartets, the American Pacifica again leaven the mix with another, contemporary, Russian composer, this time Prokofiev, whose thoughtful String Quartet No 2 is added to Shostakovich's Quartets 1-4, the first of these written when the composer was 32.

Coming after the 5th Symphony, the maturity of an experienced composer is clear, his music dynamically and compellingly realised here.