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

[Pulcinella]

I've just dug out my pocket score (Philharmonia No 486), a revision by Mila Śkampa.
There is an amazing amount of detail/dynamic marking, of three types:
1: those in square brackets denote additions by the editor (presumably Śkampa)
2: those in round brackets denote revisions by Suk which have been retained
3: those in quotation marks are Janácek's own wording of interpretative instructions

Looks a veritable minefield; perhaps no surprise that performances can vary quite a lot.

[Master Jacques]

I take it you haven't heard the Hagen Quartett version then - that's the first on I would look to for a performance that sounds sometimes almost unbearably on edge. I will listen to the Škampa recording today, you make it sound highly attractive.

You're right - I haven't, which (given the fact that the Hagen's Bartók set is a personal favourite, and prime recommendation for newcomers) is an unpardonable oversight. I'll correct this a.s.a.p.

[RichardB]

Looks a veritable minefield; perhaps no surprise that performances can vary quite a lot.

I'm not an expert on Janáček, but I've seen some reproductions of his manuscripts that I really wouldn't know where to begin to decipher.

[Pulcinella]

Bumping this thread in anticipation of more discussion tomorrow.

[Mal]

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.

I didn't find them as aggressive as the Alban Berg or Skampa quartets, and was satisfied to leave them as my library choice. Listening again, I'm still happy with them as a library choice, but they are searing & intense, it will be intereresting to hear if a more tender approach might provide a useful supplement.

[Pulcinella]

I didn't find them as aggressive as the Alban Berg or Skampa quartets, and was satisfied to leave them as my library choice. Listening again, I'm still happy with them as a library choice, but they are searing & intense, it will be intereresting to hear if a more tender approach might provide a useful supplement.

Yes; perhaps one of those pieces that you need more than one interpretation of, to suit different moods.

[Master Jacques]

Yes; perhaps one of those pieces that you need more than one interpretation of, to suit different moods.

Quite so. My copy of the Hagen Quartet Janacek CD (as urged by RichardB) arrived a couple of days ago, and I listened to it last night, with great pleasure. It shares the dangerous sonic boldness of the Skampa Quartet's recording, within a more sweeping - almost Dvorakian - romanticism, which makes for a very different impact.

While the Skampas have a sense of detailed - if necessarily undefined - narrative, and a lighter, more folkloristic approach, the Hagens are interpretatively closer to an older playing tradition, represented by the Smetana Quartet's classic (but now perhaps rather "safe-sounding") recording. They seek and find formal sense within each movement, which is less the Skampas' concern.

Both these approaches make compelling, edge-of-seat listening, and sit with the Janacek Quartet's 1960s version at the top of my personal list.

[Bryn]

Eric Levi seems to have quite a bit of trouble pronouncing Takacs. Good to find the download seems fairly priced on the Hyperion site. Multiple performances do indeed seem pretty much essential in this work. Must seek out that using the critical edition with the dynamics corrections.

[Goon525]

Slightly unexpected outcome? But a well put together BaL, with justifications given all along the way.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Good BAL this - Erik really knows what he’s talking about even if he sounded slightly hesitant at times. I think Janácek’s work greater than Tolstoy’s. He distills a rattling good yarn to its emotional essence devoid of Tolstoy’s distinctly weird moralising (if I remember the book correctly). It’s the only Tolstoy work I’ve been slightly disappointed by. Also how many amateurs can play the piano part of the Kreutzer ? - I suppose calling it the ‘Opus 12 Number One Sonata ‘ is a bit too much of a mouthful.

Did anyone select the Prazak Quartet?I have to say I’d never heard of them .

[Master Jacques]

Good BAL this - Erik really knows what he’s talking about even if he sounded slightly hesitant at times. I think Janácek’s work greater than Tolstoy’s. He distills a rattling good yarn to its emotional essence devoid of Tolstoy’s distinctly weird moralising (if I remember the book correctly). It’s the only Tolstoy work I’ve been slightly disappointed by. Also how many amateurs can play the piano part of the Kreutzer ? - I suppose calling it the ‘Opus 12 Number One Sonata ‘ is a bit too much of a mouthful.

Did anyone select the Prazak Quartet?I have to say I’d never heard of them .

I feel a fool for forgetting about the Prazak Quartet, because their Praga Digitals CD (the release coupled with the Violin Sonata) is an old favourite of mine, buried under more recent issues. Its excellence was well argued by Erik Levi, in his first-rate survey of the field.

[Mal]

Did anyone select the Prazak Quartet?I have to say I’d never heard of them .

Not mentioned in my Gramophone or Penguin guides. Third Ear, like the BAL reviewer suggests they are one of the more intense performances. From the clips played they did seem to have great intensity, perhaps even more than Pavel Haas, my current favourite. But might they get a bit over-powering at length? In any case, I look forward to listening in full...

[Bryn]

Strangely, the BaL choice is not yet indicated on the Record Review page. Those items broadcast since Bal are listed but the Bal section is quite ignored in the "Music Played" list, so far.

[richardfinegold]

Good BAL this - Erik really knows what he’s talking about even if he sounded slightly hesitant at times. I think Janácek’s work greater than Tolstoy’s. He distills a rattling good yarn to its emotional essence devoid of Tolstoy’s distinctly weird moralising (if I remember the book correctly). It’s the only Tolstoy work I’ve been slightly disappointed by. Also how many amateurs can play the piano part of the Kreutzer ? - I suppose calling it the ‘Opus 12 Number One Sonata ‘ is a bit too much of a mouthful.

Did anyone select the Prazak Quartet?I have to say I’d never heard of them .

I read the novella about 30 years ago. I was in a waiting room as my mother was having a lengthy operation. I don’t remember the moralizing. I just remember thinking how the novella matched the Janacek for intensity. Tolstoy certainly was prone to moralizing in his longer works, such as WAP and AK, so I’ll take your word that it’s in the novella.
I completed my own personal survey of the Janacek recordings on my shelf by listening to the Janacek Qt. from. The early sixties. It had been preceded by the Mandelrings, Pavel Haas, and Smetena Quartets. The JQ was my imprinting and only recording for many years. It’s a fine performance, but after hearing the competition it no longer quite has the gut punch impact that it used to have. I would give the nod to the Mandelrings , a wee bit less echt Czech than the others, but beautiful, emotional, and a spectacular recording.

[LeMartinPecheur]

My own choice: it would have to be one of the Czech versions, not one of the streamlined 'international' readings which forget that this music was written to sound on the edge - both emotionally, and at the physical limits of what's playable. Aside from the Smetana Quartet and Janacek Quartet (unavoidable classics), from slightly more modern versions I always greatly enjoy revisiting the Škampa Quartet (2002, Supraphon) who can be a mite fierce for some tastes. Not for me: I love their willingness to conjure up eerie sounds, from strange places on their strings. There is nothing sentimental about this performance.

I was transfixed by this BaL. I've known and loved the work since the 70s via the prize-winning CfP/ Supraphon recording by the Janaceks but had never tried to follow the narrative links to the Tolstoy story. Since the 70s I've added the Dantes and the Gabrielis on CD, the latter bought IIRC for the Smetana coupling.

What Levi flagged for me was an increasing move away from integrated, classical-romantic performance-styles towards deliberately fragmented, expressionistic ones. Some of the latter seemed too far off the scale in (e.g) the dissonant sul ponticello disruptions. Some of these in the polka movement seemed to me way over the top, positively un-musical. But hey, there will be other views!

Uniquely for me, at the end of the programme I listened to all my recordings, all of which I'd call still at the 'integrated' end of the spectrum. The one that baffles me most is the Dantes on Meridian. I've never got on with this disc - how I wish it had been recorded by their usual label, Hyperion. It sounds distant, over-reverberant, with no brilliance to the violin tone, and this surely is essential in these quartets. But Penguin did rate it highly. Does anyone here know it? The Janacek Quartet wove its usual magic and the Gabrielis were better than I remembered, but so as to challenge my leanings towards 'integrated, classical-romantic' I've ordered the Prazaks!