Borodin chamber mates return to L.A. for concert

Russia’s Borodin Quartet, one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles, is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a concert tour that brings it to Los Angeles this week for the first time since 1999.

Led by its 80-year-old cellist, original quartet member Valentin Berlinsky, the group will perform a program of works by Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Shostakovich on Saturday at the Wilshire Ebell Theater.

The unparalleled longevity of the group, through political upheaval at home and the death and departure of various members over time, is due to its “complete devotion to this kind of music and to this group,” said violist Igor Naidin, who joined Berlinsky, first violinist Ruben Aharonian and second violinist Andrei Abramenkov in 1996. Naidin studied with violist Dmitri Sherbalin before replacing him in the group.

Among its vast repertoire, the Borodin Quartet is celebrated for its interpretations of works by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and, famously, Shostakovich, who personally coached Berlinsky and the other original members in their performance of his quartets.

Speaking by phone from Moscow, Naidin said, “When I was a student, I thought that they were one of the most remarkable and special string quartets in the world.” He’s still awed to be “playing together every day, arguing [and] talking” with Berlinsky, “a living legend, a person who has worked with Shostakovich.”

The Borodin Quartet’s signature unity of interpretation has remained paramount since the group was founded as the Moscow Philharmonic Quartet in 1945 by Moscow Conservatory students, Naidin noted.

Shostakovich, for example, “made his wishes [known], so we keep remembering these wishes and trying to keep it the way he liked it.”

Speaking through a translator to Los Angeles Times reporter Chris Pasles in 1994, Berlinsky said, “In a quartet, the parts are much more sophisticated and complicated than in an orchestra. Sometimes we don’t come to a certain decision right away. We discuss it, play it. But our final goal is to find a constant for everybody. That’s what we try to achieve.”

The group recently finished the first recording in its Beethoven Quartet cycle for Chandos Records, which will be completed this year.