Gramophone Magazine - Disc of the Month, March\n2010
\n Gramophone Award Finalist 2010

\n

Prokofiev: String Quartet No. 1 in B minor, Op. 50
\nSonata for Two Violins in C Major, Op. 56
\nString Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op. 92

\n

The Pavel Haas Quartet, one of the very finest chamber ensembles\nof the present time, earned for their first two CDs of the quartets\nof Janácek and Pavel Haas numerous prestigious accolades (Classic\nFM Gramophone Award, BBC Music Magazine Award, Cannes MIDEM\nClassical Award, etc.).

\n

With the Prokofiev pieces featured on this album the Quartet has\nfor the first time entered the field of the Russian (or, if you\nwill, international) repertoire. Prokofiev plunged into writing his\nfirst quartet in 1930 during his first sojourn in America on the\nbasis of a commission from the Library of Congress in Washington\nDC.

\n

The “classical” sounding work blends the easily distinguishable\ninspiration by Beethoven’s quartets and the typically Prokofievian\npungency and lyricism. The duet, written in Paris, is an\ninconspicuous yet masterly small-scale work of art and alongside\nBartok’s 44 violin duets ranks among the paramount opuses of this\ngenre.

\n

The second quartet came into being in 1941 in the Caucasus,\nwhere the Soviet government had moved the artistic elites and their\nfamilies so as to protect them against the Nazi onslaught. Here\nProkofiev came across untouched folk material which he sensitively,\nhumbly and with the precise degree of artistic stylisation\nincorporated into the “Kabardinian” quartet.

\n

Their sheer musicality and ferocious youthful energy make the\nPavel Haas Quartet an ideal interpreter of these gems of\nProkofiev’s chamber oeuvre.

\n\n