ANOTHER ASTONISHING PERFORMANCE BY THE PAVEL HAAS QUARTET IN Dvořák AND Martinů
Pavel Haas Quartet: Music of Martinů, Dvořák and Korngold, Vancouver Playhouse, March 16, 2025.
Over the past two decades, the Pavel Haas Quartet has emerged as the world’s most distinguished interpreter of the Czech quartet repertory. This is their sixth visit to Vancouver’s Friends of Chamber Music, and it has been a pleasure to follow their evolution since 2010. Anchored by violinist Veronika Jarůšková and cellist Peter Jarůšek, and recently adding rich-toned Slovakian violist Šimon Truszka, the ensemble reveals the Czech spirit with remarkable virtuosity and transparency, as set within a large and flexible tonal canvas. There is always a probing dimension to their performances, rethinking works in their own terms, and bringing them forth with stunning freshness, dramatic strength and colour. This was certainly true in their splendid performances of the two Czech works on this programme, Martinů’s 3rd Quartet and Dvořák’s 11th, Op.61, compositions which are not the apex of either composer’s output, but emerged here with much greater stature and emotional weight. The more exotic work in this programme was Korngold’s 2nd quartet, which was delightful to hear in live performance.
Bohuslav Martinů’s Quartet No.3 was written in 1929, in the middle of his Parisian period, and reflects the neoclassicism of his teacher Albert Roussel. Normally presented as a motoric, driving work in its outer movements, the current interpretation was the first to show me that this need not be the case and, additionally, how Czech this work really is. After the imaginative col legno opening, the trick in the Allegro was allowing the violins to proceed at a driving pace but letting the lower strings anchor the overall rhythmic structure at a slower pace. This allowed much more vertical space for Martinů’s rhapsodic/lyrical line (usually led by the viola) to come out, bringing a rich Czech colour, sensuality and contrast to the development of movement. Combined with the projection of rhythms, not as motoric but angular in the spirit of Czech dances, this added up to a rich experience – and convincing too.
The slow movement has always hinted at a certain darkness combined with an intangible sense of wonder. Here all of this was brought into sharp relief. The opening was very quiet and dirge like, moving into a wonderful range of darker hues before the violins take the music up ‘to the clouds’ and back down again into unease. There was a lovely soliloquy feeling to many of the solo entries. The Pavel Haas played with remarkable attack and frenzy in the finale, but again a contrasting sense of fantasy and floating on clouds was mixed in. The seeming purpose was to show that the composer works on two emotional levels, one earthy and driving, the other disembodied and almost timeless. I had never thought of this type of duality in his quartet writing.
This performance was revealing not least because it made this work so much bigger in size and emotional range than the historical reference recordings by the Panocha, Stamitz, and Martinů Quartets. For an ensemble that has already won 5 Gramophone awards for its recordings, it goes without saying that playing was absolutely expert, with great subtlety combining with tremendous attack, dynamic range and colour. The beauty and caprice in Veronika Jarůšková’s violin and cellist Peter Jarůšek’s firm directing gestures were always in evidence. Since the ensemble has also recently performed the composer’s Quartets Nos. 5 and 7 in concert, a recorded cycle may be in the works.
Dvořák’s String Quartet No.11, Op.61 is one of the seven ‘last’ quartets of the composer, yet few would be inclined to rank it above Op.51, or the last 3 quartets (Op.96, 105 and 106) in terms of emotional depth or sheer endearing charm. I have always thought of it as a satisfying piece, and one with a clear debt to Beethoven, though it has not been played or recorded as often as the others. This Pavel Haas performance made me rethink this judgement: I now think it is one of the composer’s great quartets and a rather unique one too.
Ironically, I had some concerns with the opening Allegro. Impeccably laid out in terms of line and structure, it was projected almost too strongly, with extreme crescendos and ripping sforzandi that tended to dwarf a lyrical line that conveys quieter shades of fragility and hope. It was the interpretation of the two following movements that augmented the stature of the work. The slow movement was so beautifully suspended, offering a weaving journey that unearthed countless shades of wistfulness and melancholy. It also revealed truly sensitive moments from the individual voices, such as Veronika Jarůšková’s violin and the duet between 2nd violin and viola. Much of the movement was quiet, sparse and almost dream-like, and I have never heard it with such a compelling narrative line. At one moment, the feelings seemed to be grounded in this world; at another, they seemed to be escaping to another world.
© Paris Simons
The sharpness of attack in the Scherzo was stunning, but again the same contemplative and searching quality returned in the Trio, offering another deep exploration, winding to further emotional corners. A profound story emerged throughout these two movements, and it was so beautifully executed and free of affectation. One had to wonder how much Beethoven’s late quartets set the model. The finale took the work back to its Slavic roots, and it was developed with a dancing quality that linked it to the finale of the subsequent Op.96 ‘American’ quartet. Dynamic extremes were strongly brought out, and the playing sometimes had an abandoned quality in its drive and weight, but the reading was sure to reinstate a lovely ‘dumka’ feeling in its final passages.
Eric Wolfgang Korngold’s three string quartets have had an increased following in the last two decades, and perhaps the tie to the current programme is that his String Quartet No. 2 (1933) is almost contemporaneous with the Martinů. It is a key transition work, written as Korngold was about to flee Vienna for Hollywood, where he achieved his greatest fame as a film composer. Not everyone would be aware of just how much piano and chamber music Korngold wrote in his Vienna youth, where he evolved as a romantic tonal composer with a special fixation with the waltz. The last movement of the current quartet is in fact all ‘waltz’. And to indicate how quickly Korngold started setting film music after he left, his arrangements for the Waltzes from Vienna film score date from 1934, and Captain Blood came along the very next year.
In the opening Allegro, the Pavel Haas did a fine job of wedding the composer’s jumpy, effervescent development style with his more sentimental lyrical line. There are some interesting dissonances to be found too. The Intermezzo was delightfully played as sort of a carnival, with a seductive frolic, and the Waltz Finale moved through expertly-varied dynamic gradations to its grand close. Perhaps I noted a Bohemian accent in both, but there is little in it. The ensemble obviously thought that the slow movement had the most to say – and this was beautifully done, finding a distilled mystery throughout, alongside moments of passion. One notes constructional crudities at various points in the work, and the composer’s lyricism is sometimes a little too Hollywood in feeling, but the piece maintains its intrigue in a performance of this quality.
All told, this concert was a most inspiring combination of lesser-known works, stunningly played and yielding a bounty of interpretative insights.
© Geoffrey Newman 2025