Haas; Janácek String Quartets
How to follow an Award-winner? Why, produce a disc that is just as great
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Pavel Haas, Leoš Janáček
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Supraphon
Magazine Review Date: 4/2008
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 55
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: SU3922-2
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
String Quartet No. 1, 'The Kreutzer Sonata' |
Leoš Janáček, Composer
Leoš Janáček, Composer Pavel Haas Quartet |
String Quartet No. 1 |
Pavel Haas, Composer
Pavel Haas, Composer Pavel Haas Quartet |
String Quartet No. 3 |
Pavel Haas, Composer
Pavel Haas, Composer Pavel Haas Quartet |
Author: Rob Cowan
The First Quartet (1921) plays for a continuous, action-packed 14 minutes and so impressed Haas’s mentor Janácek that he had it performed. Although less striking than the Third, the First inhabits a similar climate, where temperature and colour shift with a degree of rapidity that suggests Janácek’s influence, though Haas’s musical language has a softer edge. In the hands of the Pavel Haas Quartet Janácek’s own powerfully emotive First Quartet positively glows; one cannot but help ponder what Haas himself might have achieved had he too lived to compose at the “ripe old” age of 69! The Haas Quartet negotiate Janácek’s fervid narrative without over-playing the drama, and they obviously relish its novel and occasionally abrasive sound world. It’s a very useful coupling, not only musically appropriate but evidence that the Pavel Haas Quartet can cut the mustard as successfully in standard repertoire as in the Haas rarities. This is a superb release that deserves not merely to bask in the reflected glory of its predecessor, but to share in it. The sound is first-rate.
Explore the world’s largest classical music catalogue on Apple Music Classical.
Included with an Apple Music subscription. Download now.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Events & Offers
From £9.20 / month
SubscribeGramophone Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Events & Offers
From £11.45 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.