The reputation of the Czech Pavel Haas Quartet has been gathering momentum since winning the Paolo Borciani International String Quartet competition in Italy in 2005.
With Veronika Jaruskova (first violin), Eva Karova (second violin), Pavel Niki (viola) and Peter Jarusek on cello, the name of the quartet is in homage to the Jewish Czech composer Pavel Haas who was imprisoned in the concentration camp Theresienstadt, near Prague, in 1941 and then transported to Auschwitz where he tragically died three years later at the age of forty-five.
The musicians have worked with some of the most prestigious string players in the world including members of the Borodin, Smetana and Amadeus Quartets and the programme at the Queen's Hall amply displayed the virtuosity if this immensely talented quartet.
The first piece on the programme was Benjamin Britten's delightful string quartet 'Three Divertimenti'. The pieces were first devised towards the end of his music college days and were a series of almost humorous portraits of school friends. Several years later, he revised the composition, altered the titles and created Three Divertimenti with a 'March, Waltz and Burlesque.' As the title suggests, the pieces are completely varied but certainly offer a challenge to musicians with a range of differing moods concluding in an uplifting flurry.
The next composition was one of the three string quartets Pavel Haas wrote when he was in his mid-twenties. String Quartet No 2, 'From the Monkey Mountains', was inspired by the holidays he spent in the Czecho-Moravian mountains (known as the Monkey Mountains). With contrapuntal rhythms throughout, the third movement - The Moon and I - adopts a more sombre tone, giving rise to the possibility that Haas subconsciously had a premonition of his premature death, but in the fourth and final movement, optimism returns in the shape of determination. The piece concludes with a haunting, beautiful ending.
The final composition on the programme was Beethoven's String Quartet in F opus 59 No 1. All the Beethoven quartets have been played by the world's master musicians and the Pavel Haas Quartet, considering their relatively young ages, performed with such maturity, such confidence, hitting the high notes to perfection, that they received a well-deserved rapturous reception.
Event: 24 August, 2010