Janácek String Quartet No.1
Haas String Quartets Nos 1 & 3
Pavel Haas Quartet
Supraphon SU 3922-2 54'42"
BBC Music Magazine - Chamber Choice
Erik Levi takes note from the Haas Quartet's superb disc
"Demonstrating the same boldness and originality that characterised their stunning debut disc the Pavel Haas Quartet, armed with a new second violinist, delivered totally compelling and warmly recorded performances of the Janácek First Quartet and the First and Third Quartets by their namesake. In the Janácek, the narrative of Tolstoy's novel unfolds in a vivid manner, the dramatic and sometimes deliberately disruptive contrast in gesture and texture projected with the kind of spontaneity that one would expect at a concert."
"In both these Quartets, the Pavel Haas present a more impassioned view of the music than the rival Kocian Quartet on Praga Digitals. They are particularly impressive in the variations finale of the Third where each episode is delineated with urgency and brilliant aural imagination."
Performance *****
Sound *****
BBC Music Magazine , January 2008
Other reviews...
"The young Prague ensemble address this music on merit, without a hint of sentimental retrospect. The sheer brio of their playing invests all three works with such vigour and narrative momentum that they sound like a first performance, fresh off the page."
CD of the week, Evening Standard, 5 December 2007
"In November 2006 I had the pleasure of reviewing the Haas Quartet's debut release, combining a Janácek quartet with a quartet by Haas himself: '… a very Auspicious debut on Supraphon for the Pavel Haas Quartet: Janácek's First Quartet post-haste please, and Haas's other two'. Here they are, and this is even better."
"The Haas Quartet's approach is, however, equally effective and certainly better reflects the demands of the score - the opening of the work is after all mezzo-forte, the accents a single sf. Crucially, they have plenty of passion when it is required (the first forte at figure 2, 0'45", for example). Saving their best for the real climaxes and not unleashing their full fortissimo feroce until near the work's end (as Janácek requested!) projects the work's structure all the better. The players are also able to retain sweetness of tone and purity of intonation (some of the final chords are quite breathtaking) over a wide range of tessitura and dynamic, forcing the tone only for the last degrees of intensity. Veronika Jarusková's sweetness of tone even at the top of the range in fortissimo is quite extraordinary."
International Record Review, December 2007