Janacek & Smetana: String Quartets

Takács Quartet

A second new album this year from the much-fêted Takács Quartet presents three popular string quartets from Czechoslovakia. Janá?ek’s two quartets share with Smetana’s No 1 narrative undercurrents, and draw from our four players performances of gripping engagement.

Janácek:
 String Quartet No. 1 'The Kreutzer Sonata'
 String Quartet No. 2 'Intimate Letters'

Smetana:
 String Quartet No. 1 in E minor 'From My Life'

"[The Janacek] certainly brings out the best in the Takács, who expertly negotiate the music's paradoxical demands. On the one hand, there's the illusion of wild, rasping abandon, a willingness to embrace the rough-grained sound world without inhibition. On the other, not a note seems to be out of place…this Janacek competes with the finest."
Gramophone Magazine - October 2015

"For a moment or two in the Smetana one might think that the Takács Quartet's almost Olympian objectivity wouldn't suit music that often seems to well up so directly from the heart. In fact it's a vindication of Smetana as a large-scale dramatic architect. And that 'objectivity' doesn't prevent 'From my life' becoming surprisingly moving at times…the same is true of the Janá?ek. The music touches, stirs, excites, but at the same time you're aware of how strongly each quartet is shaped as a whole."
BBC Music Magazine - November 2015 *****