Quartets by Dvořák and Tchaikovsky at SFP

Pavel Haas Quartet members Šimon Truszka, Peter Jarůšek, Veronika Jarůšková, and Marek Zwiebel (from the SFP event page)

Last night in Herbst Theatre, the Pavel Haas Quartet returned to give its sixth recital for San Francisco Performances (SFP). The quartet was founded in 2002 by Veronika Jarůšková, who remains the first violinist of the ensemble. At that time her husband Peter Jarůšek was the cellist for the Škampa Quartet, but it was not long before he moved over to his wife’s quartet. The other current members of Pavel Haas are second violinist Marek Zwiebel and Šimon Truszka on viola.

The program that the group prepared consisted entirely of two four-movement string quartets from the late nineteenth century, separated by the intermission. The first half of the program was devoted entirely to Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 61 quartet in C major. The intermission was then followed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 30 (third) quartet in E-flat major.

One of the first things to draw my attention to the Dvořák quartet was the composer’s generosity to the viola part, given a satisfyingly rich account by Truszka. Unless I am mistaken, my only previous encounter with Opus 61 was on the CD in my Brilliant Classics Dvořák Edition collection. While the composer tends to be acknowledged more for his later quartet works, this is music that definitely deserves more attention; and the Pavel Haas Quartet should be lauded for the efforts to revive interest in it.

The same can probably be said for the Tchaikovsky quartets. His chamber music repertoire was very limited. Nevertheless, he composed three “numbered” quartets, Opus 11 in D major, Opus 22 in F major, and Opus 30 in E-flat minor, as well as an earlier (1865) quartet in B-flat major, which was only published posthumously. (He also wrote an Adagio molto in E-flat major scored for string quartet and harp.) Those familiar with Tchaikovsky’s tropes will recognize many of the rhetorical turns in Opus 30, and the Allegro non troppo e risoluto Finale serves up an abundance of Russian spirit. (That is far from the only Tchaikovsky composition with a spirited conclusion!)

For the encore selection the quartet turned to Antonín Dvořák. They selected the twelfth of the eighteen love songs he had composed for Cypresses and subsequently arranged for string quartet. (Many of these were subsequently orchestrated for the performance of Antony Tudor’s ballet The Leaves are Fading.) The quartet concluded the evening with the penultimate movement in the quartet arrangement, a setting of the song “Nature Lies Peaceful in Slumber and Dreaming.” Since I became thoroughly obsessed with The Leaves are Fading after seeing it for the first time, this encore awakened no end of pleasant memories!