Talich Quartet

Biography For several decades the Talich Quartet has been recognized internationally as one of Europe’s finest chamber ensembles, and as the embodiment of the great Czech musical tradition. The Quartet was founded in 1964 by Jan Talich, during his studies at the Prague Conservatory, and named for his uncle Vaclav Talich, the renowned chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. During the 1990s, there was a gradual and complete change in personnel, rejuvenating the Quartet while continuing the tradition of its predecessors through involvement in a wide spectrum of musical engagements and recording activities. Jan Talich, the current first violinist, is the son of the Quartet’s founder. The Talich Quartet is regularly invited to prestigious chamber music festivals such as the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades, Prague Spring Music Festival, Europalia Festival, Printemps des Arts in Monte Carlo, Tibor Varga Festival of Music, and the International String Quartet Festival in Ottawa; and frequently visits such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, le Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Salle Gaveau in Paris, and London’s Wigmore Hall. The Talich’s 2012 recording of Debussy and Ravel (La Dolce Volta) was met with rave reviews, and their recordings of the complete string quartets by Felix Mendelssohn, released on the Calliope label between 2001and 2004, have been widely praised. Other recording projects include, also for Calliope, Dvorak’s “American” quartet and viola quintet (2003), Smetana’s two string quartets (2003), and a live recording of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”

and the Dvorák Quintet (2004). The Quartet’s Janácek recording was honored by Gramophone with a nomination for the best chamber recording of 2006—the only recording by a string quartet to be selected. Jan Talich – violin by Joseph Gagliano, 1780 Roman Patočka – violin of unidentified origin, Italy, c. 1800 Vladimír Bukač – viola by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini and Santino Lavazza, 1725 Petr Prause – cello by Martin Stoss, Vienna, 1821 7/13 – Please do not edit without permission.

Program Choices October - November 2014 Repertoire PROGRAM I – Quartets in F Haydn: Quartet in F minor, Op. 55, No. 2 Beethoven: Quartet in F Major, Op.135 ***** Mendelssohn: Quartet in F minor, Op. 80 PROGRAM II – Folk Music in Czech Music Dvorak: Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 51, “Slavonic” Janácek: Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata” ***** Smetana: Quartet No. 1, “From My Life” PROGRAM III – Quartet and Fugue J.S. Bach: Excerpts from The Art of Fugue Mozart: Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K. 546 Mendelssohn: Capriccio in E minor and Fugue in E-flat Major, Opp. 81, Nos. 3 and 4 OR Gideon Klein: Fantasy and fugue ****** Beethoven: Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130, “Liebquartett,” with Grosse Fuge, Op. 133

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"The program served up by the Talich Quartet Wednesday night… was an object lesson in everything chamber music should be: civilized, intelligent, challenging

and performed on the highest musical level. " — South Florida Classical Review

"The Talich remains a model of instinctively musical, utterly democratic quartet playing." — The Guardian

CONCERT REVIEWS CD REVIEWS October 2010 // The Washington Post // The Guardian February 2009 // South Florida Classical Review // The Strad November 2003 // Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Talich Quartet articulates mellow radiance in Beethoven, Janacek By Joe Banno, October 23, 2010 You can tell a lot about a string quartet's strengths and weaknesses by hearing it play Beethoven. At a Library of Congress recital on Thursday, the venerable Talich Quartet played Beethoven's B-flat String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 6, with scrupulous balances, spot-on intonation and an understated eloquence in the phrasing. Other ensembles may hit this composer's dramatic inflections with more vigor, but the Talich players did justice to the score's emotive ebb and flow while also making sure that classical proportion and musical architecture remained intact. What struck one most, though, was the sheer beauty of the Talich's playing. These musicians brought the same handsome and refined sound -- with its distinctive mellowness of timbre -- to Janacek's String Quartet No. 1 ("The Kreutzer Sonata). There's certainly room in this work's brooding melancholy and nervous outbursts to warrant a more trenchant approach than these musicians brought to it. But their razor-sharp articulation, tight ensemble and caressing tone brought Janacek's unconventional instrumental colors vividly to the fore. It's no coincidence this Czech ensemble drew such arresting character from Janacek's folk-tinged syncopations, and that same attention to Czech dance rhythms informed their reading of Dvorak's G-Major String Quartet, Op. 106. Again, energy and poise were in equal balance, and an intense concentration and cogent through-line to their expression prompted Dvorak's melodies to blossom, while allowing the score's musical logic to register afresh.

Talich Quartet brings Czech postcards from the edge By Lawrence A. Johnson, February 12, 2009

The program served up by the Talich Quartet Wednesday night at Gusman Concert Hall was an object lesson in everything chamber music should be: civilized, intelligent, challenging and performed on the highest musical level. The event was presented by Friends of Chamber Music of Miami, which, at a time of much upheaval among South Florida’s classical presenters, is quietly having a stellar season.

Even in a part of Europe with a storied musical history, the Talich Quartet embodies deep national roots. The group was founded in 1964 by violinist Jan Talich, Sr., nephew of the celebrated conductor Vaclav Talich, who himself founded the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. And though no original members remain today—Jan Talich, Jr., has taken his father’s chair as first violinist—the ensemble’s clear empathy and flair for their native music was manifest in Wednesday’s all-Czech program.

The most familiar of all Czech quartets is, oddly, Dvorak’s American Quartet in F major, Op.96, composed during his sojourn in the U.S., yet decisively imbued with the melody of his native Bohemia.

The Talich Quartet doesn’t possess a high-gloss, gleaming corporate sonority; rather, it’s a trim, dark-hued but acutely focused sound, well suited to their sensitive ensemble playing

and refined musicianship, and put entirely at the service of the music. In the performance of Dvorak’s American Quartet, there was never a sense of playing to the gallery, the sympathy for their most celebrated composer showing itself in a more subtle and less ostentatious approach to his melodies, expressively rendered but never milked for effect.

Time and again the players conveyed the music with seemingly effortless facility whether Talich’s refined solo work or the spare elegance of cellist Petr Prause’s solos in the introspective Lento. There was no lack of vigor or dynamism in the scherzo or finale, which had the requisite exuberance while maintaining a degree of apt sobriety.

The fact that Dvorak wrote thirteen other string quartets, many on the same inspirational level, is not reflected in the world’s concert halls, so kudos to the Talich for also giving us the composer’s Quartet in E flat major, Op. 51.

This earlier work was written to capitalize on the success of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, yet there’s no sense of writing to order. The freshness of the pastoral heart-easing opening theme and the natural flow of Dvorak’s rich thematic material is as deft and engaging as in the American Quartet or other more acclaimed works. Here too, the Talich’s restraint in the

Dumka movement was striking, contrasts pointed yet not over-emphasized.

Fine as the Dvorak performances were, the Talich members were most impressive in the roiling drama of Leos Janacek’s String Quartet No. 1, which takes its subtitle, The Kreutzer Sonata, from Tolstoy’s novella of the same name.

Like the story’s ill-fated heroine, Janacek’s quartet has an almost operatic intensity from its opening bars, which the Talich members dove into with daunting force. This is an extraordinary work, looking backward towards Smetana and forward to Bartok, and startlingly modern in its explosive drama with jagged waltz rhythms falling apart, driven allegros and squealing high harmonics that embody the quartet’s haunted, nerve-wracked world. The Talich Quartet’s performance was a tour de force, incisively focused, alarmingly intense and completely absorbing.

Responding to the warm applause, the group came out for an encore that kept to the all-Czech motif with a quartet movement from Erwin Schulhoff. The Czech composer perished in a Bavarian concentration camp in World War II, and the jumbled eclectic mix of Czech, Jewish and jazz elements was delivered with great energy and panache.

Music Review: Talich Quartet makes the most of hierarchy By Andrew Druckenbrod, November 19, 2003 It's often said that a string quartet at its finest is a conversation among equals. Modern music is usually composed with this as an axiom, and more than ever you now see quartets with violinists sharing duties at first and second.

As the Talich Quartet argued Monday night at Carnegie Music Hall, there is still something to be said for having a clear-cut leader at first violin. Of course, it's made easier when the first violinist's father founded the group. Jan Talich Jr. follows his father, who named the group in 1964 after a conductor uncle. However, the leadership of the son was real, not titular, at this Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society concert. He molded the individually talented group into a single voice just as convincing as that acclaimed conversation.

Haydn's "Lark" Quartet, Op. 64, No. 5 benefited the most from the approach, as it stems from the time when the first violin had an intentionally larger role in quartet music. Talich's reading was an exquisitely embroidered tapestry, with themes and phrasing woven perfectly. Violinist Petr Macecek, violist Vladimir Bukac and cellist Petr Prause were remarkably responsive to the cues of Talich. Even when they played quietly, the sound felt loud due to their playing so tightly together. In fact, I don't recall ever seeing quartet members sitting so close to each other on stage, showing that Talich's concern for ensemble began before the group played a single note.

Bartok's Sixth Quartet followed by unleashing a dark and burnished sound from the instruments. Purposefully kept latent in the "Lark," this more mysterious timbre emerged -- well-matched by each performer -- bringing appropriate flavor to this lamenting work about the horrors of World War II. The build to the bleak and desolate finale was a potent journey, indeed.

Like a finely tuned sports car, the quartet shifted yet again for Debussy's Quartet in G minor, a work it has recently recorded on Calliope. Here again, one was amazed by the ensemble and the ability to make timbre match the work. The first theme of the first movement conjured up one word: "velvet." It was a tactile response to an auditory stimulus. Jan Talich Jr. is a commanding performer whose aim is true with short or long bow strokes. His swagger and confidence never hurt the cohesiveness of the group. After all, music is not the realm of true democracy.

Yet I'd vote for this quartet to return again, and soon.

Mendelssohn: Complete String Quartets – review By Andrew Clements, June 20, 2013

Launched last year, La Dolce Volta is a French label that for some reason sports the silhouette of a motor scooter as its logo. Its catalogue mixes new recordings and reissues, and the Talich Quartet features prominently in both categories. This set of Mendelssohn's eight quartets (the E flat major work from 1823 is included, as well as those with opus numbers) first appeared in the early years of the century on the Calliope label. It wears wonderfully well. In its latest incarnation under Jan Talich Jr., son of the group's founder, the Talich remains a model of instinctively musical, utterly democratic quartet playing. The detail etched into each work here is startling, yet none of it is delivered with the kind of look-at-me self-consciousness with which some groups invest their performances. The freshness of the Op 12 and Op 13 quartets, the mature sweep of the three Op 44 works, and the sense of tragedy and loss that's barely disguised in both the F minor Quartet Op 80 and the Four Pieces Op 81, are all presented in a totally natural yet revealing way. It's a marvellous, joyous set.    

Debussy: String Quartet in G minor. Ravel: String Quartet in F major; Fresh light brought to a familiar coupling of French quartets By Julian Haycock, November 26, 2012

In their highly distinctive ways, these indelible chamber masterworks steer a tantalising musical

course between neo-Romanticism and neo-Classicism, with Debussy leaning towards the former, Ravel the latter. Performances tend to focus either on creating washes of impressionistic tonal colour or detailed textural pointillism. Yet the Talich Quartet somehow manages to cover all the bases, playing with an exquisite sensitivity to phrase and instrumental balance, while achieving a convincing symbiosis between interpretative fantasy and instrumental finesse. In two works notorious for their intonational challenges (most notably the constant tonal shifting of the Ravel finale), the Talich players maintain its composure to a remarkable degree, and the engineering is no less finely judged to create a gentle ambient glow. Debussy’s blatant Wagnerisms are kept nicely in check (the finale’s opening chromaticisms are blessedly free of cloying ‘Tristanitis’) and the pizzicatos of Ravel’s Assez vif second movement are dispatched with a swaying, fleshy nonchalance that avoids the pop-gun hysteria of those ensembles determined to be more ‘très’ than ‘assez’. There are occasions when one might prefer a more overtly affectionate response (the magical opening of the Ravel, for example), but this is

to carp in the face of two highly accomplished performances.

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