The Quartet, Op. 83 can be heard on the present CD together with the rarely played Theatre Suite. This Theatre Suite is a compilation of those pieces from two works of incidental music – Hamlet, Op. 32 and The Human Comedy, Op. 37 – that were originally scored for strings, with the exception of the Pantomime. Nikolai Akimov’s unconventional Hamlet production in 1932 at the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow created considerable controversy, but Shostakovich’s music for it was regarded as the only positive element