Dvořák, Smetana and Suk: String Quartets

Album review

Britain seems to be one of the redoubts of the classic string quartet recital, with plenty of young groups striving to distinguish themselves in standard repertory by adding careful advances and perhaps a somewhat unusual piece or two. On this excellent release by the Sacconi Quartet, the latter function is filled by the Meditation on the Old Czech Hymn, "Saint Wenceslas," Op. 35a, by Josef Suk. This work, composed in the fateful year of 1914, is a sort of defiant assertion of nostalgia in difficult times, and it absolutely deserves more frequent performances. The dark, passionate reading it receives here from the Sacconi Quartet is ideal. Hardly less strong is the performance of the well-worn String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 ("American"), of Dvorák, the chamber music counterpart to the Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 ("From the New World"), with its melodies redolent of the composer's contact with the African-American spiritual. Sample the careful shaping of the thematic material, with each component of the first movement's opening coherently carried through the entire structure and yet spontaneously and excitingly delivered. The Smetana String Quartet No. 1 in E minor,"From My Life," is less distinctive but fully engaging. This is string quartet music-making of the highest order. Issued by the players themselves on their own label, it especially merits support, and it succeeds where other such recordings often fail: the engineering is excellent.

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