An original but logical pairing of these works written jointly in 1876 for a competition organised by the Russian Music Society. ‘The jury found my sextet worthy of an honourable mention but did not take my quintet into account.’ In a sort of posthumous revenge, he might point out that the name of the winner, Eduard Nápravník (1838-1916), is barely known outside of musical reference works.

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PRD 250 089

Praga DaCamera

PRD 350 018

(prev. PRD 250 089)

Certainly the most intense chamber programme that might be dedicated to the joint memory of Sviatoslav Richter and Dmitri Shostakovich: the Quintet, which the composer played on tour with the Beethoven Quartet in the 1940s Soviet Union—and frequently programmed, with the Pražaks, by Evgeni Koroliov, one of the rare Russian pianists who can pride himself on being a direct descendant of Richter in the Russian repertoire and Bach—, coupled with the 1960 quartets: Nos. 7, Op.108, a funereal divertimento dedicated to Nina Vassilievna († 1954), and 8, Op.110, a vigorous protestation perhaps in reaction to the sight of a destroyed Dresden but especially in memory of the massacre perpetrated by Bolshevism and the war.

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Diapason d'Or

de l'année 2010

In commemoration of Robert Schumann’s bicentennial, the PRAŽÁK Quartet is joined by the Russian pianist Yevgeny Koroliov, an artist as discreet as he is a connoisseur of the piano repertoire of the composer of the Kinderszenen and Bach’s great keyboard cycles, to reproduce the concert given the morning of 8 January 1843 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig by Clara Schumann and Ferdinand David’s quartet. On that date were played, for the first time in public, the Quartet in A minor, Mendelssohn’s favorite, and the Piano Quintet, a charter of musical Romanticism whose aesthetic was going to mark a milestone and inspire Liszt as much as Brahms, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Franck…

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The fifth volume devoted to Schönberg’s chamber music. On display here is writing that, after being based on traditional models (youthful Scherzo and Presto), evolves towards a melodic density and clarity of counterpoint making the Chamber Symphony, Op.9 (1906) accomplished and radiant as much in its chamber transcriptions as in the versions for full orchestra. The Quartet No.3 (1926) achieves a masterful balance between rhythm and harmony, melody and counterpoint, horizontality and verticality. All these processes blend in an original art of the continuous variation. By blurring the formal aspect, the PRAŽÁKs make him the heir of other Viennese: Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms… and Beethoven.

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To musicologist Antony Beaumont we owe the resurrection of these youthful scores by Zemlinsky, pianist-composer beginning in the fascination or even disturbing influence of Brahms, just like Korngold and the young Schönberg. We discover a short (unfinished?) and stunning masterpiece of chamber music with voice on the first twenty lines of a morbid, mystical poem by Richard Dehmel. Probably written shortly before Transfigured Night, Schönberg's famous sextet, in less than eight minutes it reaches emotional incandescence...

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Homage to Glazunov who taught classical art to Russian composers of the 20th century and revealed chamber music to a community favouring choral and lyric art. His ‘cosmopolitan’ students (Stravinsky, Prokofiev…) and his heirs from the interior (Miaskovsky, Shostakovich, Weinberg…) were thus able to be major players in the contemporary world. His own works are now being rediscovered and appreciated for the perfection of their craftsmanship, like those of a Russian Mendelssohn singing in his genealogical tree.

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