More than two and a half years after its last Pierre Boulez Saal appearance, the Hagen Quartett returns to perform the complete string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich. In five concerts, spread throughout the 2021–22 season, the musicians will explore the monumental cosmos of these 15 landmark scores in the order of their composition, opening a fascinating window into the composer’s creative process over the course of three and a half decades. The series opens with the three earliest quartets, written between 1938 and 1946.