04 April 2011

the awesomeness of the Pavel Haas Quartet

How awesome was Sunday night’s local premiere of the Pavel Haas String Quartet? Dude: so fucking awesome!

Sorry, it must be the WonderCon in the air. But seriously: totally fucking awesome!

The young players are Veronika Jarůšková and Eva Karová on violin, Pavel Nikl on viola, and Peter Jarůšek on cello. This Czech quartet has received heady praise in its short existence, and to me its appearance jumped out as a highlight in the always-solid San Francisco Performances schedule. I was a little surprised that Herbst Theater wasn’t packed, but the audience’s enthusiasm made up for any empty seats. (I shouldn’t make the hall sound too empty; it was a respectable showing for the first pleasant day of spring, though I did expect this to be a big draw – I mean, this is the California Bay Area, and we get lots of pleasant days, but fewer concerts this thrilling.)

The quartet plays vigorously but without vulgarity, tempering its energy with finesse. And the program was intriguingly off the beaten path: Schulhoff's Quartet No. 1, Debussy's Quartet in G minor, Op. 10, and the eponymous Pavel Haas’s Quartet No. 2, Op. 7, "From the Monkey Mountains." Schulhoff, like Haas, was of the generation of composers killed by the Nazis. The program was, without being a morbid memorial, a reminder of how much vital music we lost.

The Schulhoff piece is wild and strong, sort of like taking central European folk music, a hoedown, and the wistful soundtrack of an arty black-and-white film showing the sun low on empty streets washed by rain and blending them all together with surprising harmony at high speed. And though I love the passing-clouds-reflected-on-the-still-surface-of-the-lake sound of most Debussy playing, it was refreshing and unusual to hear PHQ’s muscular account. The cellist rocked back and forth in one passage, his eyes frequently on the first violin.

After the intermission came the Pavel Haas. The third movement in particular, The Moon and I (largo e misterioso), reached for a deeper poignancy. You can hear the quartet playing the piece on one of their CDs, along with Janacek's "Intimate Letters" (and more Janacek is always a plus). But that’s not the same thing as hearing them live, and my description is inadequate: you just should have been there.

The encore was Britten’s Waltz (from Three Divertimenti for String Quartet), a short piece of heart-breaking charm.

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