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Hearing Anew

Michelle Dulak Thomson on January 18, 2011

If a few decades of listening to recordings has taught me anything at all, it's that "anything that can be done has been done before and done better" is horsepucky. Whether things can be done better is, possibly, a matter of opinion; whether they can be done differently is a fact. A new performance can make you reimagine a piece you thought you'd known cold. Two new discs, by the Pavel Haas and Artemis Quartets, remind me why archives are not enough.

Pavel Haas Quartet: Dvořák - String Quartets
Pavel Haas Quartet:
Dvořák - String Quartets

Listen To The Music

String Quartet no 12 "American"
IV. Finale. Vivace ma non troppo (excerpt)

String Quartet no 13
I. Allegro moderato (excerpt)

Of the two, the Pavel Haas Quartet is the younger ensemble, formed in 2002. The Artemis Quartet, launched all the way back in 1989, are by comparison oldtimers, except that its current second violinist and violist joined simultaneously in 2007. In addition, throw in that in the previous incarnation the violinists alternated as first and second, while in this one Natalia Prischepenko is permanent first, and you have a practically new ensemble. What they share is extraordinary technical crispness coupled with tenderness and intelligence.

The Pavel Haas' Dvořák "American" Quartet is a very fine one, but then practically every recording of the "American" is a very fine one. (I speak from some experience, having willy-nilly accumulated a dozen or so recordings of the thing, always because they were attached to something else — the Varsovia Quartet's to an earlier Dvořák quartet, the Griller Quartet's to a Bloch quartet, the Orlando Quartet's to a lovely Mendelssohn Op. 12, a couple to the Smetana First Quartet, and so on.) The piece doesn't literally play itself, but it's hard to mess it up. The pitfalls are few and the tunes carry everything.

But its disc-mate on the Pavel Haas Dvořák CD, the G-Major Quartet Op. 106, is another story. This is a piece to bewilder anyone who thinks of Dvořák as easier and more cheerfully ethnic Brahms. It has a habit of spinning off in alarming harmonic directions; it changes mood on a dime; and it's an uncommonly awkward thing to play (there are places that you'd almost think were a hasty reduction of an orchestral score). Music of incredible beauty, the slow movement especially, but most difficult to bring off.

The Pavel Haas Quartet plays the absolute living heck out of it. You'd have to hear other performances to know how good this one is. There is, for example, a strange interlocking ostinato between the viola and cello early in the Scherzo. It always sounds like two dogs fighting over a bone — except here, where for once you can hear it as a substratum and pay attention to the violins dueling over it.

Artemis Quartet: Beethoven String Quartets Op.18/1 and Op.127
Artemis Quartet: Beethoven String Quartets Op.18/1 and Op.127

Listen To The Music

String Quartet No.1 in F major Op.18 No.1
I. Allegro con brio (excerpt)

String Quartet No.12 in E flat major Op.127
I. Maestoso - Allegro (excerpt)

Here and elsewhere in the fast movements, the articulation is inhumanly crisp, and yet the tone unfailingly humane. As for that slow movement, I never thought to hear the Alban Berg Quartet's recording outdone, but ... let's call it a draw.

The Artemis Quartet's most recent Beethoven disc affects me much the same way. That's maybe because they're much the same sort of quartet, prizing clarity and precision and dynamic range while preserving a tenderness of expression that doesn't belong to the more muscular American string quartet ensembles. Beethoven's Op. 18/1 has never really been a favorite of mine, but in these hands I can see why the composer treasured it, rewrote it, and chose it to head his first set of quartets. The first movement is simply alive; you feel that the music is choosing actively where to go next. The Scherzo dazzles briefly, the finale (with its roulades as clean as I've ever heard them) one-upping it. And in the middle, the harrowing slow movement for once didn't feel long to me.

As for Op. 127, which takes up the rest of the disc: It's simply a splendid performance. There is so much in the way of detail — the magnificent swagger in the Scherzo's trio section, the little hesitations in the staccato bits of the finale, the careful, immensely controlled pacing of the slow movement, and the dreamlike beginning of the finale's coda. It strikes me as a little too bright sometimes for a piece that seems to dwell in the half-light, but it has the one thing about it that makes performances valuable: The piece isn't quite the same after you hear it.