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Session Report: Escher Quartet on Janáček and Haas

2023-08-02T08:01:00

Escher String Quartet 4_Anna Kariel

Escher Quartet cellist Brook Speltz talks to David Kettle about the foursome’s original interpretations of Janáček and Haas quartets

Escher Quartet cellist Brook Speltz has one abiding memory of recording the ensemble’s new disc of Janáček and Pavel Haas: that it almost didn’t happen at all. What threatened the project was Storm Eunice, which sent winds of more than 120mph tearing through southern England in February 2022.

‘It’s quite a story, actually,’ Speltz remembers. ‘We’re based in New York, but we recorded the album in England, at Potton Hall in rural Suffolk, and the previous evening we’d been playing at London’s Wigmore Hall. We’d arranged to pick up a rental car the morning after the concert, and drive from London to the recording venue.’…

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