Smetana: String Quartets / Pavel Haas Quartet
) | Label: SUPRAPHON Catalog: SU4172-2 Format: CD Pavel Haas QuartetAfter their Janáček quartets and their award-winning Dvořák (“Recording of the Year”, Gramophone 2011) and Schubert (“Recording of the Year”, Gramophone 2014), the Pavel Haas Quartet has now put all their energy to the service of the music of Bedřich Smetana. Though very modest in scale, each of his chamber works can be said without exaggeration to be a foundation stone of Czech chamber music. They are personal works, often with a strong autobiographical element. Smetana wrote both his quartets towards the end of his like when he was already suffering from deafness: the First (“From My Life”) is programmatic, the Second seeming to belong almost to the 20th c. in its unconventional compositional style. Founded 2005, the Pavel Haas Quartet has established itself as one of today’s great chamber ensembles, performing at the world’s most prestigious concert halls and recording five award-winning CDs as exclusive Supraphon recording artists.  Price: $28.98 |