Audiophiles are lucky when it comes to the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, especially when you consider the embarrassment of riches that are the Shostakovich String Quartets. If you dig LPs, there are two essential batches of complete recordings: the Borodin Quartet and the Fitzwilliam Quartet. On CD, there's the fabulous live edition by the Emerson Quartet, rendered in superb sound by Da-Hong Seetoo.Then there are the symphonies, which is a heck of a lot of good music—and bigger than life sound.Gerard McBurney puts a life in perspective.
