Pavel Haas Qt

In concert: Dana Zemtsov and PHQ

I have been listening to a couple of CDs by the violist Dana Zemtsov. And I thought I’d also share this video of a relaxed and very engaging short concert she gave with friends a couple of years ago. I particularly enjoyed the opening two pieces by Beethoven and Lutosławski, and the final pieces (starting at 51.40) by Shostakovich.


What took me to exploring Dana Zemtsov’s recordings was finding that she is to be the violist with the Pavel Haas Quartet for the coming months. She is obviously a very fine player, but also (or so it strikes me) her approach and playing style should be a terrific fit. [Added: And a review of their Madrid concert, a couple of days ago, comments that they were “perfectamente integrados”, mentioning particularly Dana Zemtsov’s viola as something “fantástico” given how new she is to the quartet.] I really do hope this works out for them all — we so need the PHQ to settle into a happy new line-up and then feel able get back to the recording studio!

Meanwhile, here are two BBC radio recordings from PHQ concerts at last year’s Bath Mozartfest. First, the Prokofiev’s String quartet No 2 (which they recorded on a prize-winning CD a dozen years ago) and Schubert’s String quartet in G major, D 887 (starting at 6.14). [You might need to use a VPN pointed to the UK to access BBC sounds.]

And some other PHQ news, in case you missed it. In the BBC Radio 3 Record Review programme last Saturday, their “Building a Library” episode was surveying recordings of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No 8 in C minor. Surely one of the very greatest pieces of chamber music of the second half of the twentieth century. The reviewer’s top recommendation was the PHQ recording. So yet another accolade for them. You can listen to a podcast of the episode here. And then their recording of the Shostakovich was broadcast here (starting at 17.00).

Music for the end of the year

Somewhat to my surprise, I have posted here over a hundred times in the last year. But very many of the posts were of (at best!) pretty ephemeral interest — for example, giving links to then current drafts of the Beginning Mathematical Logic Study Guide, to updated chapters for Gödel Without (Too Many) Tears (lots of those), and updated chapters for the stuttering notes on Category Theory (lots of those too). Other posts were logic/maths booknotes, not all exactly friendly. But I wasn’t always mean: there was warmer praise for a number of books, including the following very mixed bag:

I’ve also been intrigued by the opening chapters of

but I’m not at all sure what to make of Tennant’s deviant form of logicism and his handling of logical objects more generally. And as you’ve noticed, I’m still wrestling with and learning from

More, no doubt, about this very substantial book in the new year.


There have also been a dozen and a half posts on particular musical enthusiasms. So, since you may have a little more time over this holiday season, let me repost links to three wonderful filmed performances which are still available to watch. First, the wondrous Pavel Haas Quartet, recently at Wigmore Hall:

As I wrote before, it makes for a rather dramatic stage presence, Veronika Jarůšková with her mass of golden hair and a golden yellow dress catching the stage lights,  the rest of the quartet in the most subdued of subfusc. And there’s a lot of drama in the performances too. But in one respect, the way the quartet play couldn’t be further from what is visually suggested — the equal balance, the closeness of the ensemble, the intense way they listen to each other, is as ever remarkable. So here they are, playing Haydn’s Op. 76 No. 1, Prokofiev’s second String Quartet No. 2, and then Pavel Haas’s String Quartet No. 2 (that’s the one with percussion in the final movement). On this occasion, I thought, the Prokofiev was especially fine: it is difficult to imagine the deeply affecting Adagio being played better.

Next, here is Elisabeth Brauss, also performing at Wigmore Hall to the warmest of receptions:

The recital started Beethoven’s Op. 109 Sonata, which inspired Elisabeth to quite mesmerising playing with heart-stopping moments: transcendental music, and a performance to more than stand comparison with the very best I’ve heard. Sadly, this part of the recital is no longer available online. But in the rest of an engagingly varied programme she offered us some rarely performed Hindemith, Brahms’ late four Klavierstücke, and Schumann’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien, all done with such verve and then wonderful delicacy, as variously called for — just a delight. You can watch here.

Thirdly, let’s revisit the extraordinarily stellar Lea Desandre, filmed by candlelight, from Rouen … escaping our mad world for an hour. Sheer delight again, and just wonderful singing and playing.

The Pavel Haas Quartet, at Wigmore Hall, online

It makes for a striking stage presence, Veronika Jarůšková with her mass of golden hair and a golden yellow dress catching the stage lights,  the rest of the quartet in the most subdued of subfusc. And there’s a lot of drama in the performances too. But in one respect, the way the quartet play couldn’t be further from what is visually suggested — the balance, the closeness of the ensemble, the intense way they listen to each other, is as ever remarkable. So here they are, from a Wigmore Hall concert last week, playing Haydn’s Op. 76 No. 1, Prokofiev’s second String Quartet No. 2, and then Pavel Haas’s String Quartet No. 2 (that’s the one with percussion in the final movement). On this occasion, I thought, the Prokofiev was especially fine: it is difficult to imagine the deeply affecting Adagio being played better.


Veronika Jarůšková founded the Pavel Haas Quartet in 2002, and she is the only remaining member from the original four — though she was soon able to swap cellists with the Skampa quartet, so was joined by her husband Peter Jarusek in 2004. There were then some changes of second violin until the quite excellent Marek Zwiebel joined in 2012. It seemed then that the Quartet was happily settled in a steady state. It must have been a great blow to them when their founder violist Pavel Nikl felt he had to leave the Quartet in 2016 because of family illness. Since then there have been — for whatever reasons, the internal dynamics of a quartet must always be complicated — more changes in the viola seat than they could possibly have wanted.

But for a few months now, it has been occupied by another Czech, Karel Untermüller — who looks on stage such a stolid figure, but his ability to have fitted into the Quartet’s style so seamlessly, so quickly, is rather extraordinary. However, it is not clear what the future holds — I see that at a February PHQ concert at Wigmore Hall, the viola is being played by Dana Zemtsov, while touring the USA in March the violist is Šimon Truszka.

The unsettled recent state of the Quartet must mean that recording plans are on hold for now. But Veronika Jarůšková, Peter Jarusek and Boris Giltburg are going into the studio this month (I think) to record Dvořák trios together. The Czech concerts where they have performed these have had rave reviews. So another terrific CD to look forward to in 2023!

PHQ, at the Edinburgh Festival

Photo by Petra Hajska

There was an extraordinary concert by the Pavel Haas Quartet at the Edinburgh Festival on Tuesday morning, with a BBC radio recording available for a month. They gave very fine performances of

Haydn: String Quartet in G major Op. 76/1
Martinů: String Quartet No 7 H314
Schubert: String Quartet in G D.887

The Schubert was particularly intensely felt. But what made the performances little less than miraculous was that they playing with (yet another) new violist. The gifted Luosha Fang was with them as recently as the East Neuk Festival in early July; and interviews when their Brahms Quintets disk came out a bit earlier gave every impression that after a year she was very much part of the Quartet. But now, it seems, more trials and tribulations for the Quartet and, for whatever reason, a sudden parting of the ways. The viola seat is now being occupied — at least for the rest of the year — by a Czech compatriot, Karel Untermüller. So there he was, just a few weeks into the role: yet the ensemble seemed (at least to my not very expert ears) to be as remarkable as ever. Which, as I say, was surely rather extraordinary.

There is a good piece on the concert here.

Added And there is now also a rave review here. It finishes “These musicians are at the very top of their form: their playing is virtuosic, their tone is sensational, and they listen to one another as though their lives depend on it. In short, wonderful.” Perhaps it was the very necessity of extra-extra-close attention to each other, playing with a brand new member, that produced  such fine performances.

PHQ, twenty years on, at East Neuk

Pavel Haas Quartet 2021 — Photo: Marco Borggreve

The Pavel Haas Quartet gave two concerts at the East Neuk festival earlier in the month (Veronika Jarůšková and Peter Jarůšek also played Dvořák trios with Boris Giltburg, to great acclaim). You can now catch up with most of the pieces from the full Quartet’s concerts (the second with Boris Giltburg) in two short programmes on BBC Radio 3, available for a few weeks on BBC Sounds:

Korngold: String Quartet No 3 & Janáček String Quartet No 2 ‘Intimate Letters

Suk: Meditation on the Old Czech Hymn ‘St Wenceslas’ Op 35a & Dvořák: Piano Quintet No 2 in A major Op 81

The Korngold was a complete revelation to me, and the Dvorak (which they have of course recorded) was as usual a delight. As for their intense Janacek, here is the reviewer for the Edinburgh Music Review:

I have been to perhaps a dozen performances of Janáček’s ‘Intimate Letters’ (Quartet No. 2) over the years, including by the great Smetana Quartet in the RDS in Dublin in the late 70s.  I knew that I would be captivated by the music.  I read in the programme that the performers had studied with Milan Škampa, the legendary violist of the Smetana Quartet.  I knew I was about to hear an informed and technically excellent performance.

I knew nothing.  I have no hesitation in stating that the performance of Janáček’s ‘Intimate Letters’ that I had the privilege of experiencing live in Kilrenny on 30th June 2022 was by far the finest performance I have heard, live or otherwise, of this extraordinary work.  I am not alone.  Walking back to the car after the concert, multiple strangers shared in breathless tones much the same sentiment with me.

And indeed the performance is something very special — though you do need to listen in decent headphones to appreciate the extraordinary dynamic range.

This is the PHQ’s twentieth-anniversary year (and what a journey — of their nine CDs, no less than five won Gramophone awards for the best chamber music disc of the year, and one of these won the overall accolade of CD of the Year). But they sound as fresh as ever. Perhaps because they have had to renew themselves more often than they probably would have liked (in the early years in the second violin position, and then latterly after their founding violist very sadly had to leave because of family illness). But the new violist, Luosha Fang, is surely deeply impressive and I think the quartet has never sounded better. Let’s hope for another more settled period with more recordings to come. And meanwhile I can be thankful again for some of the best concert experiences of my life, and the existing CDs to remember them by.

New Brahms album from the PHQ

The Pavel Haas Quartet’s recent performances of the Brahms quintets with their friends Boris Giltburg and Pavel Nikl (I’ve caught some online) have been just stunning. And now there is a new album released today. Extraordinary.

The Pavel Haas Quartet play Haydn Op. 42

From photo by Marco Borggreve [Click for full original image]
Grim, grim days.

For fifteen minutes of consolation, here is a wonderful performance of Haydn’s Op. 42 String Quartet by the Pavel Haas Quartet. It is on the BBC website, a late night programme from a few days ago: the Haydn starts at 4:59:30.

This must, I think have been recorded from a Wigmore Hall concert some years ago now, when the violist was Pavel Nikl. So the cheering photo, from the quartet’s latest gallery from the fine photographer Marco Borggreve, doesn’t quite fit! But I thought I would post it anyway …

One of the ten greatest? PHQ play Dvorak

Of course, these sorts of listings shouldn’t be taken too seriously. But the BBC Music Magazine has just suggested a list of the ten greatest string quartets of all time (that’s ensembles, not compositions). It runs, in chronological order,

  • Busch Quartet (1912-51)
  • Borodin Quartet (1945-present)
  • Quartetto Italiano (1945-80)
  • Amadeus Quartet (1947-87)
  • Alban Berg Quartet (1970-2008)
  • Kronos Quartet (1973-present)
  • Takács Quartet (1975-present)
  • Emerson Quartet (1976-2023)
  • Ébène Quartet (1999-present)
  • Pavel Haas Quartet (2002-present)

I certainly wouldn’t have included the Kronos in my top ten (I don’t go for their kind of pretentious repertoire), and I do find the Emerson’s impressive gloss not particularly appealing either. Who would I substitute? Certainly, the truly great Smetana Quartet (1945-1989). And probably the Lindsays (1965-2005), who on their best, take-no-prisoners evenings, could be simply stunning in their emotional intensity, and whose recordings still make wonderful listening.

And of course, I am all for the tenth entry! “Stylistically powerful and richly sonorous, the group is known for its passionate and fearless performances,” says the magazine. And certainly, the PHQ have provided some of the most intense musical experiences of my life. Here they are, from a lockdown recording last year, playing my favourite Dvorak quartet, the ‘American’. (At that point, they were between permanent violists, and are joined by their founder-member Pavel Nikl, who sadly had to leave the quartet a few years ago for family reasons.) Enjoy!

Dvořák in Prague — Piano Trio no. 3

Last Autumn, at the Dvořákova Praha festival, Boris Giltburg with Veronika Jarůšková and Peter Jarůšek of the Pavel Haas Quartet played all four of Dvořák’s Piano Trios to great acclaim. You can now hear the rather monumental third of them from a Dutch radio broadcast, which you can stream here. The first piece in the long concert is the Grieg Piano Concerto with Boris Giltburg. The Dvořák Trio starts about 1 hour 33 min into the broadcast.

Press the purple “Speel” button, and the controller then appears at the bottom of the webpage. Enjoy!

And a reminder that for a day or two more, you can still see the PHQ plus Boris Giltburg and Pavel Nikl in their wonderful Brahms concert at Wigmore Hall in October.

The Pavel Haas Quartet play Brahms

The Pavel Haas Quartet back at long last at Wigmore Hall last night, playing two Brahms Quintets, with their original violist Pavel Nikl for the string quintet and their good friend Boris Giltburg for the piano quintet. In simply great form, as the audience agreed, judging by the reception. Free to stream (performance starts about 4.30 in). Don’t miss them.

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