Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959)
String Quartet No.2, H.150 (1925)
String Quartet No.3, H.183 (1929)
String Quartet No.5, H.268 (1938)
String Quartet No.7: Concerto da camera, H.314 (1947)
Pavel Haas Quartet
rec. 2025, Domovina Studio, Prague
Supraphon SU4368-2 [78]

The two Martinů cycles of string quartets that I’ve always looked to with most pleasure – not that there have been many – are by the Stamitz (ex-Bayer, more recently Brilliant Classics) and the Panocha on Supraphon. What I most missed in the latter group’s approach, as I wrote in the relevant review, was grit, and that particular quality was more evident in the Stamitz’s performances which is why I preferred their cycle, albeit with some reservations, including ones about the recorded sound. Now here comes the Pavel Haas quartet and provides grit, along with a high level of intensity, in abundance. 

The quartets are presented in the order 5, 3, 7, 2 though you, obviously, can listen in any order you like. However, it does suggest a priority to start with No.5, the clear masterpiece of the cycle, but a work of challenging intensity. It was written in 1938 in the wake of Julietta, the Tre ricercari and the Concertino for piano and orchestra and the draft was dedicated to his pupil and lover, Vitězslava Kaprálová. The opening movement is full of razory intensity whilst the second, the Adagio, is pensive and unsettled until the close when it resolves rather beautifully – the composer encodes a quotation from one of Kaprálová’s songs to poignant effect. The most startling difference between the three groups is in the Scherzo which the Pavel Haas group take at a blistering pace, full of biting rhythms and visceral power. The finale holds the deepest secrets though, starting with a slow, intense, passionate panel and then generating obsessive drive until the very end where the music slows. As I wrote in my review of the Stamitz cycle, ‘Not only is this a technically powerful work, but it is also argued with strong internal dynamic and emotive contrasts. It charts that movement with honesty and with genuine warmth and power and stands as the summit of Martinů’s control over the form, a focus of conflict and resolution he never again attempted.’

Quartet No.3 dates from 1929 and its own sense of volatility is evident but also much more compressed as the quartet lasts 13-minutes in this performance. The Panocha dispatch it in 12 and the Stamitz split the difference, taking 12:30. It can be succinctly described. A motoric first movement is followed by a tonally more anchored Andante, made the richer by virtue of lyric lines for the viola, which (apart from its one aggressive outburst) is largely untroubled. The finale is a kind of perpetuum mobile with rapid changes of colour and timbral density, sporting a cocky little tune.

His final work in the form is No.7, Concerto da camera, composed in 1947 when he was expecting to return to a teaching position in Prague. This is the most fresh-faced of all his chamber works and the Pavel Haas catch its light-hearted essence via appreciably faster tempi than the competition, which consequently generates a sense of joyous exuberance. Martinů’s neo-classicism is infectious here, so too the music’s friskiness and, in the central slow movement, its unburdened sense of itself – its Dvořákian lineage conveyed with an unironic sweetness very rare in his music. This good-natured work is easily the most approachable of his quartets and is played with real insight by the Pavel Haas quartet.

We go back to Paris in 1925 for the Second Quartet, another of his three-movement works. There are some signs of Roussel in this work and in the driving vigour of the opening one hears an aeration of textures and a quality of capricious glee that sound typically Gallic. Though the Andante begins tersely, it softens and lightens whilst the finale offers a playful profile and a moment of concertante virtuosity for the first violinist – another rarity in the cycle – amidst the renewed neo-classical drive.  

Another advantage of this latest disc is the recorded sound which is excellently judged spatially. The Stamitz’s cycle dates from 1990 and the Panocha’s spans the years 1979-82 so it’s high time Supraphon backed another quartet to challenge, and even ‘replace’ the Panocha.  In my view they have easily done that even with a change of personnel from the established line-up – both the inner chairs have been replaced – and they now stand as the go-to quartet in this body of work.   

I hope – assume – that there will be another disc to complete the cycle. Given their tensile strength and the fact that they tend to take fast tempi – not unreasonably motoric but generally fast – they should be able to present the other three quartets on a single disc, and that includes the c.35-minute First Quartet. Here’s hoping.

Jonathan Woolf

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