In these days of Covid, our chances of seeing live concerts from our favourite musicians are much reduced. In particular, since we don’t live in the Czech Republic or nearby, I’m not going to get to see the Pavel Haas Quartet live again for a good while yet. But I will be catching a couple more online concerts, this time recorded for the West Cork Chamber Music Festival. The first is tonight (29th June), and then available on demand for 48 hours. The second is on Saturday (3rd July) and then again available on demand for 48 hours.
I don’t know quite how many readers here ever follow up the musical posts. However, I do occasionally get ‘thank you’ emails! So let me say more about these concerts. Who knows, it might tempt a few readers to catch one or other of them. I hope so!
The first features Martinů, Quartet No.2; Schulhoff, Quartet No.1; Janáček, Quartet No.2 ‘Intimate Letters’. From the West Cork website:
Pavel Haas was a Jewish Czech composer like Schulhoff. They both perished in the Holocaust and the Nazis set out systematically to suppress their music by taking over music publishers and banning all performances of their music. This was lethally effective and it took decades to rediscover their music and to return it to its rightful place in the repertoire. This concert features a Prague-based Czech Quartet playing the music of three well-known Czech composers. Martinů was a wonderful composer of chamber music. He wrote: ‘It is hard for me to express the happiness I feel when I start composing chamber music – the delight of leading the four voices, in a quartet one feels at home, intimate, happy.’ Martinů wrote seven quartets that are seldom heard, hopefully a future Festival will include the full cycle. Schulhoff fought in the First World War and post-War turned away from traditional musical forms, associating them with the decadence of the old order that had led to the catastrophe of world war. He spent the Twenties experimenting with different forms both musically and politically. His First Quartet, dating from 1924, is an explosion of energy but otherwise follows a surprisingly conventional path. Janáček’s two quartets are well-known as they trace in music his obsessional love affairs. Milan Kundera wrote: ‘His music is a breathtakingly close confrontation between tenderness and brutality, madness and peacefulness; it condenses the whole of life, with its hell and its paradise.’
The second concerts features Dvořák, Piano Trio No.3 in F minor Op.65 and Piano Quintet No.2 in A major Op.81. From the concert website again:
For this special concert, Pavel Haas Quartet is joined by Boris Giltburg for two major works by Dvořák, his tempestuous F minor Piano Trio and the infectious delight of his second A major piano quintet. For the Trio the Quartet’s leader, Veronika Jarůšková, and cellist, Peter Jarůšek, join Boris Giltburg. This concert was recorded at the Martinů Hall in Prague. Dvořák’s Third Piano Trio was composed shortly after his mother’s death, it opens in passionate agitation and ends in an emotional tempest. In between comes a tuneful and light-hearted Allegretto leading to a calm and meditative Adagio. Despite his personal loss, Dvořák is able to swathe his distress in a succession of the glorious melodies for which he was so renowned. The opening of the Piano Quintet never loses its magic however often we hear it, while the Andante gives the languid voice of his own instrument, the viola, a leading role. There are no shadows in this unblemished music.
Need I say more? These concerts should indeed be wonderful. Very inexpensive online tickets for the Tuesday concert available here and for the Saturday concert available here.