Pavel Haas Quartet to Return to SFP with Pianist

Veronika Jarůšková, Marek Zwiebel, and Peter Jarůšek standing behind Jiří Kabát and pianist Boris Giltburg (from the SFP event page for this concert)

Visits to San Francisco Performances (SFP) by the Pavel Haas Quartet (violinists Veronika Jarůšková and Marek Zwiebel, violist Jiří Kabát, and cellist Peter Jarůšek) have become consistently welcome affairs. Next month will see their sixth appearance in Herbst Theatre, the last one having taken place in April of 2011, back when I was writing for Examiner.com. For this season’s visit, however, they will be joined by Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg.

The entire quintet will perform during the second half of the program. The single selection will be Antonín Dvořák Opus 81 (second) piano quintet in A major. The first half of the program will be devoted entirely to the twentieth century. It will begin with Bohuslav Martinů’s sixth string quartet, which he composed in New York in 1946. This will be followed by Béla Bartók’s fourth quartet, composed in Budapest in 1928. Music theorist Allen Forte developed an argument to demonstrate Bartók departing from tonality in this quartet, particularly in its third movement.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10. Herbst Theatre is located on the first two floors of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, convenient to public transportation on both Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. Ticket prices will be $70 for premium seating on the Orchestra level and in the front of the Dress Circle, $55 for the Boxes, the remainder of the Orchestra, and the remainder of the center Dress Circle, and $45 for the Balcony and the remainder of the Dress Circle. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through an SFP event page.