Homogenous ensemble-playing and the art of listening to each other were also features of the performance of the Borodin Quartet at the Salzburg Festival in 1961. Their Salzburg première of the Eighth String Quartet by Dmitri Shostakovich confirmed them as one of the leading ensembles not just for works by this composer, but for Russian and contemporary music in general. Above and beyond this, the Borodin Quartet also demonstrated its immense stylistic competence in works by Brahms and Ravel, whose music framed the work by Shostakovich that was at the core of the evening. Their performance of these other composers was no less subtle in its dynamism and agogic power.