Pavel Haas Quartet: Shostakovich D.: String Quartets No. 2, 7, 8 - CD

Pavel Haas Quartet and (indeed) their Shostakovich.
• Dmitry Shostakovich - String Quartet no. 2 A major op. 68 (1944)
• String Quartet no. 7 in F minor, Op. 108 (1960)
• String Quartet no. 8 c minor op. 110 (1960)

Shostakovich - this is a challenge that every quartet must sooner or later face. However, in the case of the Pavel Haas Quartet, it seems to be their own country.
Their unrestrained, impulsive, sometimes frenetic energy, sense of extreme contrasts, the ability to graduate from breathtaking subtlety and tenderness to symphonic drama, all these means are essentially to Shostakovich and his music.

The second quartet (1944), although composed in a safe background, reflects the pain, uncertainty and rupture of life in the middle of the war (the captivating Violin Recitative by Veronika Jarůšková in the 2nd movement! ). Quartets no. 7 and 8 were created in 1960 and both are very internal confessions. The seventh, the shortest in the cycle, was dedicated by Shostakovich to the memory of his first wife. The eighth author probably intended the eighth as his own epitaph, at a time when he was on the thin line between life and death.

The autobiographical character of the work is also evident in the introductory four-tone motif (D-Es-CH), the author' s musical signature, which is still returning in the composition. PHQs cross the abyss of time and the barrier of personal physical existence and enter the very center of Shostakovich' s music, in the full range of emotions and with immediacy, as if it were the music of their own.

Pavel Haas Quartet
Veronika Jarůšková - 1st violin
Marek Zwiebel - 2nd violin
Jiří Kabát - viola
Peter Jarůšek - cello

Playlist

Dmitry Shostakovich - String Quartet no. 2 in A major Op. 68
String Quartet no. 2 in A major: I. Opening. Moderato con moto / String Quartet no. 2 in A major: II. Recitative and romance. Adagio / String Quartet no. 2 in A major: III. Waltz. Allegro / String Quartet no. 2 in A major: IV. Theme with variations. Adagio - Moderated with a motorcycle
Dmitry Shostakovich - String Quartet no. 7 in F minor Op. 108
Allegretto / Lento / Allegro - Allegretto
Dmitry Shostakovich - String Quartet no. 8 in C minor Op. 110
Largo / Allegro molto / Allegretto / Largo / Largo