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THE TALICH QUARTET: AN ONGOING TRADITION OF GREATNESS

Dan Davis

Weill Recital Hall, New York: February 22, 2002

The 21st century version of the venerable Talich Quartet made one of its all-too rare New York appearances February 22nd at Carnegie Hall’s intimate Weill Recital Hall, a perfect setting for chamber music. The Talich Quartet was founded in 1964 by Jan Talich Sr., nephew of one of the last century’s conducting greats, Václav Talich, for whom it is named. It was renowned for its recordings of the complete Beethoven quartets, among other pillars of the repertory. Since the early 1990s there’s been a complete change in the group’s personnel, with the son of the founder, Jan Talich, now first violin. But the style of today’s Talich Quartet is very close to that of the original group–rich, full-bodied tone built on a strong bass foundation, a probing interpretive stance that digs deeply into the music, and individual and group virtuosity tempered by musical integrity. Since the present foursome were either in diapers or just out of them at the time the original Quartet was founded, there’s also an added youthful flair and more energetic thrust to faster movements.

The concert opened with Erwin Schulhoff’s String Quartet No. 1, whose 1925 premiere in the company of new works by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Hindemith and Janáĉek indicates that the young Schulhoff was one of Europe’s bright compositional lights. His music is finally being explored on disc and in concert after vanishing for half-a-century after his death in a Nazi internment camp, and the Talich Quartet proved compelling advocates. The Quartet begins with a brief, fiery movement bristling with energy. The following allegretto is marked to be played “with a grotesque melancholy” and the Talich players fulfilled those instructions handily, with violist Vladimír Bukac’s impudent, slide-filled solo adding the right touch of expressionist creepiness. The third movement is what you’d expect if Dvořák scored one of his Slavonic Dances for string quartet. The final Andante, almost twice as long as any of the other movements, is made of deeper stuff, moving from an impassioned cello-viola duet over a quiet violin ostinato to an increasingly attenuated soundscape that ultimately fades into silence. A moving work, movingly played with due attention to the cheeky humor as well as to its grim forebodings.

The Talich Quartet then turned to Janáĉek’s last major completed work, the Quartet No. 2, “Intimate Letters,” describing the aged composer’s love for a younger married woman. It’s a piece brimming over with passion and powerful emotions, and that’s the way the Talich played it, with white-heat intensity; Bukac again excelled in the important viola part, projecting it with an irresistibly big, velvety tone. Here, and in the Schubert “Death and the Maiden” Quartet that followed after intermission, some of the evening’s finest moments came from the interplay between the viola and Petr Prause’s equally large-toned, gorgeously resonant cello. The Schubert featured a wide tonal palette and dynamic range, the powerful bass resonance balanced at the other end of the spectrum by Jan Talich’s bright, forward violin. The first movement bristled with drama and energy. The group perfectly caught the ghostly quality of the Andante’s opening, and projected the ensuing variations, which give each of the instruments solo opportunities, with huge reserves of emotional eloquence. The brief scherzo flew by on wings and the final Presto was a startling burst of controlled wildness. Here, as in the other pieces, we heard playing that was impeccable, pure of tone and intonation, every gesture directed to the music’s expressive point.

The group performed two encores, the grief-laden Lento movement from Beethoven’s Quartet No. 16 Op. 135, and the Molto Vivace movement from Dvořák’s Op. 96 Quartet, the “American.” Both made one thirst to hear them play the complete works. The original Talich Quartet was one of the world’s best; in its second generation, it still is.

Dan Davis

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