Smycov Kvartety – CD

After recordings of Janeks quartets and Dvoks award-winning music, the Pavel Haas Quartet turns to the complete string quartets of Bedich Smetana. Although Smetanas chamber output is small, each work is a cornerstone of Czech chamber music, personal and often strongly autobiographical. Both quartets were written late in his life, after he had been affected by deafness. The First Quartet, From My Life, is programmatic: Smetana intended to portray the course of his life in tones, as an intimate conversation among four instruments. The Second Quartet already seems to belong to the twentieth century, partly through its unconventional compositional approach, which unsettled Smetanas contemporaries. For the Pavel Haas Quartet, Smetana is an obvious choice rather than a repertoire discovery; the discovery lies in the interpretation. The ensemble avoids external effects and extremes, seeking instead to reach the heart of the music with compelling fullness. This recording offers an impressive answer to how timeless Smetana can sound in the twenty-first century: classical, intimate and enduring.