Janacek: String Quartet No. 1 'The Kreutzer Sonata'

“This well-filled reissue sees the original Talich Quartet in blistering form. The performances of the Smetana Quartets are among the best that are available.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2011 *****

“At every stage, these performances command attention and serve Janácek's highly personal agenda superbly. Quite rightly, the performers recognise the near-operatic quality of much of the writing, reaching an apogee of expressiveness in the finale of the Second Quartet. Martinu's Madrigals for violin and viola, played with a clear understanding of the lineage they bear with Janácek, make an excellent makeweight.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2009 *****

“The performances here have the sovereign control and the perfect weighting of each line in the musical argument that are the group's trademarks.” The Guardian, 15th May 2009 ***

“Live performances of the Janácek quartets, with a vehemence and rawness which seem try to the extreme emotions of the elderly composer. The Dvorák fill-up is lovely but irrelevant.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2009 ****

“the PHQ’s streamlined but full-blooded playing is more than welcome, and if they are lining up the first Janácek and the first and third Haas for a follow-up CD,I will be at the front of the queue to hear it” Gramophone Magazine

“Haas was destined for Auschwitz (where he was killed in 1944) and although it would be fanciful to read prophecy into the pages of this marvellous and varied work, [the 3rd String Quartet] the candour and emotional unrest that it expresses have inevitable associations. In the hands of the Pavel Haas Quartet Janácek's own powerfully emotive First Quartet positively glows... This is a superb release...” Gramophone Magazine, April 2008

“…totally compelling and warmly recorded performances…” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 *****

“This disc's Gramophone Award-winning predecessor coupled the second string quartets of Haas and Janácek (see below), superbly played and including optional percussion in Haas's finale.
Haas's Second (subtitled From the Monkey Mountains) is an amazing piece, but the Third is surely his masterpiece. It is both more concise and more tautly argued than the Second, less a journey into fantastical realms than an urgent, astringent drama, rhythmically driven and intensely heartfelt.
And no wonder, given that the Quartet was composed in 1938 when Haas and his family were already marked for tragedy as part of a racially mixed community where an active Nazi faction was ready to pounce. Haas was destined for Auschwitz (where he was killed in 1944) and although it would be fanciful to read prophecy into the pages of this marvellous and varied work, the candour and emotional unrest that it expresses have inevitable associations. The longest movement is the last, a theme with variations which closes with a brief but pungent fugue and at times seems prophetic of Prokofiev's folk-derived Second Quartet of 1941.
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. 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.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010