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Schubert - Death and the Maiden, String Quintet

£21.79

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Label: Supraphon

Cat No: SU41102

Barcode: 0099925411022

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 2

Genre: Chamber

Release Date: 23rd September 2013

Works

Schubert, Franz

String Quartet no.14 in D minor, D810 'Death and the Maiden'
String Quintet in C major, op.163 D956

Artists

Danjulo Ishizaka (cello)
Pavel Haas Quartet

Works

Schubert, Franz

String Quartet no.14 in D minor, D810 'Death and the Maiden'
String Quintet in C major, op.163 D956

Artists

Danjulo Ishizaka (cello)
Pavel Haas Quartet

About

Two years on from their award winning Dvorak album, the Pavel Haas Quartet turn their attention to Schubert’s two late masterpieces.

The String Quartet in D minor has a sort of dark cipher encoded within. The title “Death and the Maiden” reflects the quotation from Schubert’s eponymous song in the second movement. The theme of death is also underlined by other quotations and the choice of the key of D minor, which according to the period definition is characterised by “heavy-hearted womanliness, spleen and foreboding”.

Schubert completed his String Quintet in C major for an uncommon formation with two cellos a mere two months before his death. Its instrumentation occasionally gives an almost orchestral impression, with the cello playing a significant role as the bearer of melody.

The Pavel Haas Quartet invited along a distinguished friend to the recording sessions, the exceptional German-Japanese cellist Danjulo Ishizaka, whose qualities were concisely described by Mstislav Rostropovich: “Phenomenal in his technical ability, perfect in his musical creative power”.

“Throughout, their understanding of the musical argument is exemplary...at every stage the performers respond with both passion and a clear feeling for musical line...In truth, there are so many details that delight the ear it would be almost impossible to list the all” - BBC Music Magazine

Sound/Video

Paused

1

String Quartet no.14 in D minor - I.Allegro
2

String Quartet no.14 in D minor - II.Andante con moto
3

String Quartet no.14 in D minor - III.Scherzo
4

String Quartet no.14 in D minor - IV.Presto
5

String Quintet in C major - I.Allegro ma non troppo
6

String Quintet in C major - II.Adagio
7

String Quintet in C major - III.Scherzo
8

String Quintet in C major - IV.Allegretto

Europadisc Review

There’s something unmistakably distinctive about the great Czech school of string quartet playing. Stretching from the legendary Bohemian Quartet (of which the composer Josef Suk was a lifelong member), through the Janáček and Smetana Quartets of the twentieth century’s second half, to the many fine ensembles of recent years, it is a tradition that marries the best of Slavic passion and intensity with a polish and technical superiority ideally suited to the great works of the Central European repertoire, from Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, to the Czech masterpieces of Smetana, Dvořák, Janáček and beyond.

Since its foundation in 2002, the Pavel Haas Quartet has rapidly achieved a pre-eminence among not just Czech ensembles but internationally. They now follow their award-winning recordings of Janáček, Haas and Dvořák with this new double-disc of late Schubert masterpieces, and the results are exceptionally fine. As with their recording of Dvořák’s ‘American’ and late G major quartets, they tap into a rich vein of lyricism, never losing sight of the long line, while at the same time bringing an urgent incisiveness to the music that makes for immensely compelling listening.

The first disc presents an uncommonly penetrating account of the D minor ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet. Here the Pavel Haas Quartet are more gratefully recorded than the Takács Quartet on Hyperion, less febrile and fragmentary than the Belceas on EMI. In the first movement, their marginally slower tempo pays handsome dividends not just in added expressive heft but in countless illuminating details. The transition back to the recapitulation is particularly atmospheric, as is the coda. All the while, the players are beautifully balanced, rooted by Peter Jarůšek’s rock-like yet incisive cello playing. In the great slow movement, a set of variations on Schubert’s song Der Tod und das Mädchen, the tensions are steadily increased, momentarily relaxed in the exquisite penultimate maggiore variation before the yet more intense final variation – deftly realised here – and the eventual release of the coda. Scherzo and finale are taut, intense and full-blooded, yet with enough space for the relaxed lyricism of the former’s Trio, and beautifully detailed for the pianissimo scurrying in the latter. By any standards, this is a remarkably powerful and thoughtful reading of Schubert’s most famous quartet.

Even finer is the Pavel Haas Quartet’s performance of Schubert’s great C major String Quintet on the second disc. Here they are joined by the hugely talented cellist Danjulo Ishizaka, and the results are tremendously compelling. From the very opening chords, this is an account that relishes the expansive textures, the boldness and the sheer expressive range of Schubert’s invention. The dynamic range is wide, yet credibly so, and the effect of the tutti passages in the first two movements verges on the orchestral without a trace of textural heaviness. At the same time, the second subject, with its famous cello duet, is treated with the greatest delicacy, while the latter stages of the development have an inexorable tread in the lead-up to the recapitulation.

There’s a rapt stillness and exquisite poise to the Adagio, the tone beautifully nurtured, making the explosive central section and its desolate postscript all the more powerful. In Scherzo and finale, the earthy dance element is perfectly captured in a manner that only Czechs (and perhaps Austrians) can so authentically achieve. The Trio once again brings a magical poise. The degree of relaxation in the finale’s second subject is judged to perfection, and there’s a tangible sense of a long expressive thread spanning not just the movement but the work as a whole. This is one of the finest recordings of the Quintet there’s been in years, and it’s sure to add to the Pavel Haas Quartet’s string of accolades.

The recording, made in Prague’s famed 1920s Studio Domovina, could hardly be bettered: finely detailed, yet warm and atmospheric.