Alto presents a 2026 digital remaster of the “highly proficient” (Gramophone) Glazunov Quartet in performances of Dmitri Kabalevsky’s String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2.
Born in St. Petersburg in 1904, Kabalevsky’s music is among the first generation of Russian composers who can be considered exclusively as products of the Soviet era, alongside his close contemporaries Shostakovich and Shebalin. His Quartet No. 1 of 1923 displays an early mastery of the genre while displaying his burgeoning and fresh voice. The Quartet No. 2, published twenty-two years later, is a work of more dramatic intensity. Dating from the war years, it already shows the extent to which he had matured as a composer.
The Glazunov Quartet gave its first concert in 1987 under the name “Moscow Conservatoire Quartet”, before winning the Voronezh All-Union Competition. They later changed their name to the Glazunov Quartet, specializing in Glazunov and Russian classics. They gave successful performances throughout Europe’s most prestigious halls, with recordings in Germany, Greece, and Russia, lasting through the late 1990s.
