The Strad Recommends: Pavel Haas Quartet: Martinů

THE STRAD RECOMMENDS

The Strad Issue: December 2025

Description: Another benchmark reading from this stellar Czech group

Musicians: Pavel Haas Quartet

Works: Martinů: String Quartets nos.2, 3, 5 and 7

Catalogue number: SUPRAPHON SU43682

What a quartet! Not only are the members of the Pavel Haas Quartet supreme recording artists but they are equally good live. Each strand of hair on the bow is carefully calculated to suit the shading of a phrase, and yet their delivery always remains startlingly spontaneous.

Such qualities are very much in evidence in this latest beautifully engineered recording featuring four of Martinů’s quartets (composed between 1925 and 1947). The Second, written in Paris, following the composer’s studies with Roussel and Novák, is a relatively positive work with energised idiomatic part-writing, illustrating that he was already a master of the genre.

The Third Quartet is defined by more experimental timbres, such as sul ponticello and col legno, alongside prominent use of pizzicatos – all of which lift the texture. Intricate rhythms and tightly charged dialogues feature in the virtuosic contrapuntal writing of the opening Allegro, so brilliantly etched by these players. Equally they are eloquent in the ensuing Andante, with its gently stretched tonality. Vibrato is astutely deployed so that the textures are lucid, and adroitly sculpted.

Darker hues percolate through the Fifth Quartet, the power of which really hits you in terms of the aggressive percussive quality of the opening Allegro. Rhythmically pungent and passionate, this is a rollercoaster of coiled tension. In contrast, the Pavel Haas Quartet musters a magical intimacy in the Andante of the Seventh Quartet. To sum up: this is absolutely fantastic quartet playing that brings these lesser-known works to the top table.

JOANNE TALBOT