Pacifica Quartet (Photo Credit: Anthony Parmelee)

Performing the complete works of a composer has become second nature to the Pacifica Quartet. At the moment it’s doing a Beethoven cycle at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it’s the quartet-in-residence (having replaced the Guarneri Quartet in that position after it disbanded). The group has recorded the complete Mendelssohn quartets, and it’s done several concerts of the complete Shostakovich quartets, which it recently has also begun to record. The series, called The Soviet Experience, will encompass not only Shostakovich’s 15 quartets but also quartets by his younger and older contemporaries, as well as by composers who have been influenced or affected by him.

“Last year we did something with a pop artist, who was surprised by how we approached recording and concertizing,” Masumi Per Rostad said in a phone interview. “He told us that pop artists make a recording first then go on tour, but classical musicians go on tour first and then record.”

Rostad, the Pacifica’s violist, spoke with Reichel Recommends recently to discuss the group’s Shostakovich project and its upcoming concert in Salt Lake City, which will be presented by the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City. “We’ve done the cycle in Champaign (where they are on the faculty at the University of Illinois) and in New York at the Metropolitan Museum,” he said. “We’re currently doing it in London, and in May we’ll be playing it in Montreal. That’s just for now.”

At the same time, Rostad and his colleagues slip into the recording studio whenever their schedule allows to continuing recording. The first volume of their projected four-volume series was released last September and was nominated for a Grammy for best engineered album.

There is a wonderful gem on that two-disc album: Nikolai Miaskovsky’s Quartet No. 13 in A minor, op. 86, written the year he died, and which they’ll be bringing with them to Libby Gardner Concert Hall for their Jan. 18 concert.

Miaskovsky, who lived between 1881-1950, is an older contemporary of Shostakovich whose music has been enjoying a resurgence of sorts in the last few years. “A lot of very good composers were suppressed during the Stalin years,” Rostad said. “They found it hard to write under the Soviet regime and weren’t proud of what they did write. They didn’t have Shostakovich’s ability to walk the line and do interesting things. And Miaskovsky suffered a bit because of this. But this is a fascinating quartet.”

Rostad went on to say that the piece is difficult to describe. “It has its own idiom and kind of keeps you on your toes. The writing is inventive and the themes are heartfelt, although there are some oddball themes, too. But the music is charming.”

Also on the concert is Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 9, op. 117, from 1964. “This is one of his more popular quartets and one of our favorites,” Rostad said. “We love playing it because it runs the gamut of expressions.”

Rounding out the program is Beethoven’s Quartet in F major, op. 59, no. 1, the first of the three Rasumovsky quartets, so called because they were commissioned by and dedicated to Prince Rasumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vienna. “Beethoven uses a Russian theme (in the finale),” Rostad said. “There is a Russian idiom there, but you hear it from the perspective of Western classical music.”

CONCERT INFO:

What: Pacifica String Quartet, presented by the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City

Venue: Libby Gardner Concert Hall, University of Utah

Time and Date: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 18

Tickets: $25 general, $5 students

Phone: 801-561-3999

Web: www.cmsofslc.org

ALSO: Pre Concert Discussion by Ardean Watts, Room 270 (Weight/Hales Choral Rehearsal Room), David Gardner Hall, 6:45-7:15 p.m., Jan. 18, free (shuttle buses will run from the Rice Eccles parking lot starting at 6 p.m.).

ALSO: Master Class with the Pacifica Quartet, Thompson Chamber Hall, David Gardner Hall, 2-3 p.m., Jan 18, free (no shuttle bus available).