Lafayette String Quartet: Ann Elliott-Goldschmid, Violin Sharon Stanis, Violin Joanna Hood, Viola Pamela Highbaugh, Cello For various political and personal reasons, most of Russia's major composers have neglected the genre of the string quartet. The so-called "father of Russian music," Mikhail Glinka, wrote none. Intent on producing an operatic and symphonic repertoire, his nationalistic successors on the St. Petersburg scene - Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Modest Mussorgsky, all members of the "Mighty Handful" - were only slightly more productive. Ironically enough, it fell to Dmitri Shostakovich, generally regarded as the greatest Soviet composer, renowned for his at times bombastic and highly "public" symphonies, to revive and "Russify" the string quartet tradition. In 1938 he launched a brilliant cycle, eventually producing fifteen quartets before his death in 1975. Tchaikovsky's sunny, carefree First String Quartet (completed in 1871,when he was 31) was one of his first major instrumental works, and helped to establish him as a serious composer. Harlow Robinson