BaL 15.04.23 - Janácek: String Quartet No 1, “Kreutzer Sonata”

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

10.30 am
Building a Library: Erik Levi chooses his favourite recording of Leo Janácek’s String Quartet No 1, “Kreutzer Sonata”.

Composed in only nine days in 1923, Janácek’s compact, emotionally supercharged String Quartet No 1 takes its title from Leo Tolstoy’s 1889 novella where a wife and her violinist lover play Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata together before the jealous husband murders his adulterous wife. Janácek’s music roils with the conflicted passions of tormented love, desire and jealously of Tolstoy’s story. But there was emotional turmoil in Janácek’s life, too. Long-fed up with his wife, in 1915 Janácek had fallen deeply in love with Kamila Stösslová who, happily married and 40 years his junior, made sure that Janácek’s love remained unrequited. And if that was unfortunate for Janácek, it was surely lucky for us as he poured his feelings for Stösslová into music which blazes with a truly exceptional emotional intensity.

Available versions:

Acies Quartet
Alban Berg Quartett
Arcadia Quartet
Arianna String Quartet
Austrian String Quartet *
Belcea Quartet
Brodsky Quartet
Calidore String Quartet
Casal Quartet
Cecilia String Quartet *
Dante Quartet
Doric String Quartet
Emerson String Quartet
Endress Quartet *
Gabrieli String Quartet *
Guarneri Quartet
Hagen Quartet
Henschel Quartett
The Knights, Eric Jacobson
Janácek Chamber Orchestra
Janacek Quartet
Jerusalem Quartet *
Juilliard String Quartet *
Wroclawska Orkiestra Kameralna Leopoldinum, Ernst Kovacic *
Leipzig String Quartet
M. Nostitz Quartet *
Mandelring Quartet *
Martinu Quartet
Medici String Quartet
Melos Quartet *
Navarra String Quartet
New Zealand String Quartet
Shuichi Okada, Alexandre Pascal, Violaine Despeyroux and Jérémy Garbarg
Panocha Quartet
Pavel Haas Quartet
Prazak Quartet
Quartetto Danel *
Quartetto Energie Nove
Quatuor Debussy
Quatuor Lontano
Quatuor Zaïde *
Raphael Quartet *
Quatuor Diotima *
Schoenberg Quartet *
Schulhoff Quartet *
Skampa Quartet
Smetana Quartet *
Takács Quartet
T’ang Quartet *
Talich Quartet *
Taurus Quartet
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti *
Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Terje Tønnesen
Vanbrugh Quartet
Vlach Quartet Prague
Wihan Quartet

(* = download only)

[Pulcinella]

Gabrieli and Pavel Haas versions on the shelf here, but my first recorded version was on a Classics for Pleasure LP: discogs tells me it was by the Janacek Quartet (originally on Supraphon). I remember the cover vividly.

https://www.discogs.com/release/3770654-JanáčekJanáček-Quartet-String-Quartets-Numbers-1-And-2

[Mandryka]

It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I have a clear favourite from the handful I’ve heard - Quartetto Energie Nove.

[RichardB]

I shall be interested to find out what happens, perhaps more on this thread than on the programme. My favourites out of the recordings I've heard have been the Hagen and Diotima. (The latter is coupled with two recordings of Intimate Letters, one with viola and one with viola d'amore.) But I haven't heard very many, although I love this work and its companion.

[richardfinegold]

Gabrieli and Pavel Haas versions on the shelf here, but my first recorded version was on a Classics for Pleasure LP: discogs tells me it was by the Janacek Quartet (originally on Supraphon). I remember the cover vividly.

https://www.discogs.com/release/3770...umbers-1-And-2

That was my first recording, on the Quintessance label

[mikealdren]

Gabrieli and Pavel Haas versions on the shelf here, but my first recorded version was on a Classics for Pleasure LP: discogs tells me it was by the Janacek Quartet (originally on Supraphon). I remember the cover vividly.

https://www.discogs.com/release/3770...umbers-1-And-2

The CFP Janacek quartet was my introduction to these amazing works too and it's still a favourite on CD.

It's perhaps a shame that it isn't being reviewed by our resident Janacek expert Makropulos. He did an excellent pre-concert talk on the quartets at the Wigmore Hall a few years ago.

[Bryn]

The CFP Janacek quartet was my introduction to these amazing works too and it's still a favourite on CD . . . .

Wasn't that licenced from Supraphon? It was the Supraphon LP that was my introduction.

[Pulcinella]

Wasn't that licenced from Supraphon? It was the Supraphon LP that was my introduction.

Yes, as I mention in #2; details in the discogs listing I linked to.
I've just found it (Supraphon CD incarnation) on Deezer so have lined it up for streaming later.

[Darloboy]

This is the first time that BaL has covered an individual Janáček quartet; normally they consider both quartets together. Previous BaL recommendations of the quartets were:

John Warrack (Jan 1992): Talich Qt (+ Lindsays as also recommended)
Peter Paul Nash (Jan 2000): Panocha Qt
Ivan Hewett (Sept 2012): Pavel Haas Qt (+ Mandelring Qt as top recommendation of both quartets on a single CD)

[teamsaint]

Yes, as I mention in #2; details in the discogs listing I linked to.
I've just found it (Supraphon CD incarnation) on Deezer so have lined it up for streaming later.

On seeing your uncorrected post I was tempted to ask if we could look forward to “ Saturday Morning Fever”, but obviously that would have been silly…..

I just have the Gabrielli, so certainly in the market for a second disc.

[Bryn]

I have not listened to it in quite a while but I recall the Pavel Haas Qt as being rather special in this work.

[RichardB]

I listened to the Hagens again today, both quartets plus the sadly brief Wolf Italian Serenade that they're combined with. I can't imagine a performance that explores the timbral and poetic extremes of those pieces as beautifully as this one does. While I was thinking about Janáček, I also came across a disc of orchestral excerpts from three operas (Vixen, House of the Dead and Brouček) conducted by Bělohlávek which I liked a lot, I just thought I'd mention that.

[richardfinegold]

I really love this music but I have not spun the discs for a while. I was surprised that my shelve contain 4 recordings;
1) Janacek Qt on Supraphon-I think that is the recording that I, Pulcinella, and others owned
2) Smetena Qt. on Denon
3) Pavel Haas, Supraphon
4) Mandelring Qt./Audite

I really need to listen to these again

[Sir Velo]

It's perhaps a shame that it isn't being reviewed by our resident Janacek expert Makropulos. He did an excellent pre-concert talk on the quartets at the Wigmore Hall a few years ago.

Jan Smaczny is probably the current critic for whose opinion I have the greatest respect in this music. John Warrack used to do an excellent job too for Gramophone in days of yore, and probably did more than anyone else in instilling a love of Janacek.

[Pulcinella]

I must have bought the Haas as a result of a recommendation (probably Gramophone) but seem to remember finding it a bit too aggressive in music I think should be more tenderly played.
Mind you there's a lot of emotion behind/within the music.
Time to take it off the shelf and listen again, and try to find some of the others already recommended here to stream.