Recently, I had a chance to catch up a little with my former student, Derek Fenstermacher, who himself is a former student of one of my other former students, and dear friend, Demondrae Thurman. In addition to his work as principal tubist for the New Jersey Symphony, freelancing with the New York Philharmonic and other orchestras, and teaching, it happens that Derek is a member of a great tuba quartet, made up of four of Demondrae's former students, the Boreas Quartet. He gave me a copy of their CD, The Serpent's Kiss, and, unsurprisingly, I was duly impressed.

This month's clip is part of the arrangement one of their members, Matthew Mireles, made of Shostakovich's String Quartet #8. While the lush, expressive possibilities of the instruments are fully exploited in the long tones in the work, played expertly by the group, they are also particularly adept at bringing out the many moments of agility in the fast sections. It nearly sounds as if the piece was originally intended for the instrumental combination and sounds as effective (dare I say, perhaps, more so?) as the original String Quartet combination.