Talich Quartet

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 ChampsElysées 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
Select Press
"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 highgloss, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Responding to the warm applause, the group
came out for an encore that kept to the allCzech 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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