Captivating Playing By Prague Quartet

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30849, 7 September 1965, Page 16

Captivating Playing By Prague Quartet

The Prague String Quartet played for the Chamber Music Society in the Civic Theatre last evening. It is a younger group of players than we have usually had and the members played with dynamic tone of bright vitality and warmly mellow quality.

The programme began with Haydn's Quartet in C major Opus 54 No. 2. and. in the first movement especially, the first violin has a prominence rather like that of a concerto performer and Mr Bretislav Novotny produced soaring tone of scintillating quality at every appropriate moment. The movement was » work of pleasantly flowing and unruffled nature, friendly and urbane. A gentle melancholypervaded the adagio move Trent leading to the minuet which sang on its way with gracious verve The finale began with an adagio full of wise sayings snrineing from human understanding and kindliness The members of the Quartet played with per . feet balance and produced

homogenous tone of interestingly merging tonal colours. In the presto section a boisterous little breeze ruffled the calm surface, and then the meditative music returned casting a sunset glow over the performance. Beethoven’s Quartet in E flat. Op. 74 followed and in its beginning there was a continuation of the spirit of the ending of the Haydn but at a deeper level of reflection Drive, searching, and adventure came with the allegro in a large tapestry of lovely autumnal shades. The second movement was music of serene and confident trust. Hectic excitement was roused at the beginning of the scherzo giving the tang of wind in the face during a headlong horseback ride. The two trios checked the pace when we had passing acquaintance with double-fugato form but serious pedantry could not hold the day and the winds soon blew freely again. These carried us into the last movement when fresh scenes of pastoral idyll followed one mother with gracious and eentle kaleidoscopic changes. This was the great work of

the evening and it was magnificently interpreted. Then the programme ended with Tchaikovski’s Quartet No. 1 in D. Op. 11. The first movement was a pleasant exeursion undertaken in comfort but never venturing beyond the foothills. The second was the well-know andante cantabile brought off with suave polish and perfect matching of balance tone all beautifully controlled in variation within soft levels. Conviviality and the excitement of the dance appeared in the brightly-coloured scherzo played with splendidly controlled rhythmic discipline in the last movement, which opened with s'ome promise of adventure, had melodic materia] giving the naivety of folk song without much evidence of inner acquaintance with the real life of the peasantry. As an encore the last movement of Dvorak’s Op. 90 was played and there was more convincing exuberance in it.

This was a programme which never extended either the players or the audience While the playing was captivating and unfailingly charming the concert did not raise us to heights nor give the thrilling memories which so many of our other Chamber Music Sociey concerts have done. —C.F.B.