Haas - String Quartet No.2
Janacek - String Quartet No.2
Pavel Haas Quartet; Currie
Supraphon SU38772

Release date October 2006

The young Pavel Haas Quartet has only been playing in its current configuration since 2004. It bears the name of the Czech composer from the first half of the twentieth century who was a student of Janácek and one of the most outstanding musical talents of his time. He wrote his String Quartet no. 2 (out of a total of three) at the age of 26, three years after he finished his studies with Janácek. While the marks of his teacher on his style are unmistakable, even by this stage he has developed a distinctive individual musical personality. The ‘Monkey Mountains’ of the title refers to the Czech Highlands near Brno, a popular area for recreation, but despite the programmatic titles of the four movements (Landscape; Coach, coachman and horse; The Moon and I; and Wild Night) the thematic activity of the writing is such that the work presents a unified whole. You don’t need to be an expert to enjoy this music; Haas’s depiction of the coach with its (surely) lop-sided wheel and horses that canter gaily down one hill then toil up the next is ingenious and amusing. The substantial third movement, marked Largo e misterioso, contains beautifully lyrical music that returns to the ‘Landscape’ of the first movement before its close. In contrast, the fourth movement (given here in its original version with percussion, the effects ably supplied by Colin Currie) works itself into a dancing frenzy of folk-like melodies before subsiding, finally arriving at a noisy and emphatic close. The members of the Pavel Haas Quartet throw themselves into this work, as they do in the Janácek, which receives one of the most daring, moving and emotionally searing performances I have heard. This is a superb disc.

Anne McAlister