Malvern Concert Club: Pavel Haas Quartet

Pavel Haas Quartet

Veronika Jarůšková violin
Marek Zwiebel violin
Jiří Kabát viola
Peter Jarůšek cello

Ľubica Čekovska The Midsummer Quartet (2016)
Schulhoff String Quartet No.1(1924)
Smetana String Quartet No.2 in D minor
Janáček String Quartet No.2, Intimate Letters

The Pavel Haas Quartet first played at Malvern Concert Club exactly ten years ago this month (a concert featuring Janáček’s String Quartet No.1), and we are delighted to welcome them back.

Founded in 2002, following their victory in the Prague Spring Festival Competition, the Pavel Haas Quartet soon established themselves as one of the world’s most exciting contemporary chamber ensembles. In 2007, the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) named the Pavel Haas Quartet one of its Rising Stars, following which the Quartet held the title of BBC New Generation Artist and in 2010 was granted a classical music fellowship from the Borletti–Buitoni Trust.

Performing at the most renowned concert venues around the globe, the PHQ have to date recorded six critically acclaimed CDs, which have received numerous prestigious awards including the Gramophone Chamber Music Award five times, and the overall Recording of the Year in 2011.

The Quartet bears the name of the Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899–1944), the most talented pupil of Leoš Janáček. Like Haas, his contemporary Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942) died in a Nazi concentration camp. His first quartet is a colourful work that strongly reflects his Czech heritage as well as a heady mix of the styles and trends of the 1920s. The quartet by the Slovak composer Ľubica Čekovská (b.1975), premièred by the PHQ, references Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Of tonight’s two older composers, although Smetana’s first quartet has been played eight times at the Club (including at its third ever concert, in 1904), surprisingly tonight’s is the first ever performance here of the second.