Cedille presents the second installment in the Pacifica Quartet's highly anticipated, four-volume CD survey of the complete Shostakovich string quartets: The Soviet Experience: String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich and his Contemporaries. The Soviet Experience is the first Shostakovich quartet cycle to include works by other important composers of the Soviet era, adding variety and perspective to the listening experience. Volume 2 features five works from the period surrounding World War II: 1938 - 1949. Included are Shostakovich's surprisingly sunny and spring-like Quartet No. 1; his often symphonic-sounding Quartet No. 2; the emotionally-powerful Third Quartet, one of Shostakovich's greatest chamber music masterpieces; his Fourth Quartet, notable especially for it's 'Jewish'-themed finale; and Prokofiev's folk-influenced Quartet No. 2. Volume 1 received universal praise on both sides of the Atlantic and was included on the best classical albums of 2011 lists of the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, the New Yorker, San Jose Mercury News, Newark Star-Ledger, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch.