BBC RADIO 3 RECORD REVIEW DISCS OF THE YEAR 2017
PAVEL HAAS QUARTET AMONG THE BEST RECORDINGS
Album detail
Catalogue number: SU 4195-2
4th January 2018
Andrew McGregor is joined in the studio by Natasha Loges, Elin Manahan Thomas and Andrew Mellor to discuss which new releases they have most enjoyed this year. The new Dvořák album has been mentioned and played among the best recordings!
Here is what they said:
BBC 3 Record Review Discs of the Year – Pavel Haas Quartet – Dvořák Quintets SU41952
Critics’ Choice edition: (Critics: Andrew Mellor, Natasha Loges & Elin Manahan Thomas)
Andrew Mellor – Pavel Haas Quartet
This was a real surprise to me but I suspect it wasn’t a surprise to others as it was to me. I was getting a bit tired of the Pavel Haas Quartet I have to admit. This kind of constant nervous energy I think in the Schubert disc that was so well received a few years ago – I found the tension a little bit trespassing on the line but here you introduce this pianist Boris Giltberg to the texture to the composition and in my mind everyone listens a little differently and they are all a little curious as to how this relationship is going to work out and the result is a hyper-reactivity that just has a little bit more space and a little bit more breadth and more conversation to it I think.
Natasha, do you feel this worked well as a team for you?
Natasha Loges: It worked really, really well for me not just because of the generosity and flexibility of that chamber music playing they are clearly thoroughly enjoying but again it made me hear Dvořák differently. I’ve always rather wrongly in my head pigeon-holed him as a Czech composer and I think a lot of people do that but this recording for me really transcended the limitations of national identity. It just sounded like immortally wonderful music and the way the lines interweave, I love the slightly old-fashioned bloom on the sound.
Andrew McGregor: I love the fact that all the tempo shifts are so beautifully done, there isn’t a single one that stuck out for me so that I thought “oh I’m not sure I would have done it like that" and every one of them sounds organically right.
Elin Manahan Thomas: I have to be honest, I didn’t know them and so coming to them I felt like I was being given them from the inside out. I felt like they had got to the heart of this music and the consideration of the tempo, the dynamics, the blend. There was an Ebb and flow to it which just keeps you listening, keeps your concentration and the interplay between them, like you said, the balance really was mellifluous.