Valentin Berlinsky: A Quartet for Life

Valentin Berlinsky (1925-2008) was a founding member of the Borodin Quartet and its cellist and mainstay for more than six decades. The story of this Soviet ensemble – the first to come out of the USSR to give concerts abroad – was inextricably linked to the personality of Berlinsky, its founder and cellist for more than six decades. A proud Russian but also a man of compromise, his was a life lived for and through the Borodin Quartet. This book is a collection of his memoirs, telling his story in his own words, lovingly compiled and edited by his grand-daughter, Maria Matalaev. His words have been extracted from diaries, correspondence and interviews, and his accounts of his close friendships with the likes of Shostakovich and Richter, Rostropovich and Oistrakh. Supplemented by tributes from family and friends, as well as an impressive annexure giving every performance, broadcast and recording made by the Borodin Quartet, this book constitutes one of the most revealing chronicles of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian musical life. In 2005, at the celebrations for both his 80th birthday and the 60th anniversary of the Borodin Quartet, Valentin Berlinsky sat down at a table with his students and said: ‘My dears, please, keep going: never leave Russia!’