Prazák Quartet

Welcome to a rare dalliance with the chamber music of Glinka, the pioneer of patriotic Russian opera including 'Ivan Susanin' (A Life for the Tsar, 1839) then 'Ruslan & Ludmila' (1842), he was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music. The mighty Prazaks pay tribute to the foreunner of Rossini and also play Tchaikovsky's 1871 Op. 11 designed for chamber orchestra rather than for the 16 strings of a quartet.

Haydn conceived these three first London quartets specifically for public performances, in the large hall of Hannover Square where the draper-violinist-impresario Johann Peter Salomon used to organise chamber and orchestral concerts. In this way, this trilogy requires a resolutely symphonic style in order to attain completeness, which is no problem for the Prazaks following their recent recording of Haydn's 'Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross' (DSD250291).

'Pierrot lunaire', the scandalous ‘Red Mass’ with its bloody host, stems from a musical art in which Viennese cabaret, Neapolitan and oriental antecedents and German Jewish humour blend with stable, clearly audible Sprechgesang in a musical framework that serves as stage director and means of dramatic expression. It simultaneously proposes a literal text of immediate impact and its humorous and even ironic antithesis. Same outline with the Suite Op.29, which is serial but with jazzy counterpoint!

The purest version of these seven sermons, here played on only the 16 strings of the Prazák Quartet, as opposed to the large string orchestral (original), oratorio, or keyboard versions, all authorised by Haydn. The Prazáks have been meditating on this series of seven adagios for 40 years and offer a narrative with innate dramaturgy, avoiding both the austere of the current Baroque vogue and the sentimental excess of an outmoded Romantic style.

This wonderful Praga Digitals release is a great way to musically discover their back catalogue recordings. This compilation presents a great opportunity to become more familiar with major and lesser-known Russian composers’ works.

The young Kinsky Trio continues the tradition of the Czech chamber school: that of the Suk and Guarneri Trios as much as that of the famous quartets: the Vlach and Smetana yesterday, today the Zemlinsky... and Prazak. Under the leadership of Pavel Hula, of the latter, there "sins of youth" again reveal their spontaneity and native Russian lyricism, souvenirs of afternoons of chamber music in which Borodin, an amateur cellist, participated in Saint Petersburg and Europe.

Influenced by Brahms, as were Korngold and the young Schoenberg, Zemlinsky’s early works include this short (unfinished?) and stunning masterpiece of chamber music with voice on the first twenty lines of a morbid, mystical poem by Richard Dehmel. It was probably written shortly before Transfigured Night, Schoenberg's famous sextet, and in less than eight minutes reaches emotional incandescence… We owe the resurrection of these youthful scores by Zemlinsky, to musicologist Antony Beaumont.

In his youth (1881-86), Strausss left chamber music worthy of a young prodigy: his Piano Quartet was written at the very end of his early period, when he developed a keen interest in the music of Johannes Brahms. Letters to his family and his friend/composer Ludwig Thuille reveal a good knowledge of the symphonies and the quartet itself is certainly modelled on the Brahms piano quartets. Despite this pervasive influence, much originality and talent is displayed in the complexity and thorough nature of this composition. Unlike some of his other works for smaller ensembles, this work was obviously an ambitious effort at creating a serious chamber piece. The fact that he submitted it to the Berlin Composer's Guild (for which he won a prize) shows that he took some pride in this work. As late as 1921, on his American tour, he was still performing it in concerts. Though it is not often played today, it was obviously a favorite of the composer's and is particularly interesting in the context of his developing musical style. Much later, in 1940, Strauss bequeathed a final page of magic and deadly charm: the Sextet-overture to Capriccio. The juxtaposition of these two pieces illustrates the art of a post-romantic composer initially inspired by to Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms before becoming the untiring bard of feminity, of infinite subtlety in the music of his late operas.

An amateur cellist, the composer of Prince Igor was the only one of the Group of Five to have written some ten chamber works for his personal pleasure in keeping with the laws of Germanic rhetoric - to Balakirev's great displeasure. One of them is a serious masterpiece: his Quartet in D, featuring an irresistible ‘Nocturne’, known in various arrangements, here with the Prazaks: “Quite simply a joy to hear.” The Strad