An unusual pairing of two masterpieces, superbly worked out—as always with Brahms. The last Quartet, Op.67, with its rough, bucolic, country ‘gaiety’, announces the pastoral Symphony No. 2, Op.73 of 1877. The Quintet, Op.34, is ‘beautiful beyond all that might be said about it. Whoever did not known it In its previous versions […] cannot suppose that the work was not originally thought out and conceived for the present instrumental combination [… ] a masterpiece of chamber music such as we are unable to designate any other since the death of Schubert. Nothing of this level has been heard since 1828’ (dixit Hermann Levi)…the year of Schubert’s Quintet in C, D 956.

PRD/DSD 250 220

An uncommon pairing of two essential chamber scores by the composer of Ein deutsches Requiem: the first, heroic and rigorous, nurtured at length so as to achieve and surpass the heritage of Beethoven’s ‘Razumovskys’; the other, a warm, intense and sumptuous dialogue between the woodwind and strings sublimating his last dreams and confidences, coming to an end with intimate exchanges between the clarinet and cello, ‘as if the instruments were in love with each other’.

PRD/DSD 250 227

The Czech ZEMLINSKY QUARTET, which attended master classes by Vaclàv Bernašek (Kocian Quartet), Josef Klusoň (Pražàk) and Walter Levine (LaSalle), proposes the first recording of Dvořák’s youthful works for quartet (1862-74) taking into account the cuts made in the critical edition (Supraphon-Bärenreiter). Consequently, the works are better suited to concert performance and show off to best advantage the spontaneity and richness of their inexhaustible melodic inspiration, ‘apprentice works’ that prefigure the universality of the future ‘American’ Quartet of 1893.

PRD 350 028

Anthology dedicated to one of the great contemporary Czech composer, Jindřich Feld, successor and spiritual heir to Martinů through his non-conformism and his francophilia, humanistic having built a language „out of time“, on the basis of Stravinsky, Bartók and then Berg without erasing his atavistic Slavonic expressionism. He dedicated one of his last major works to the viola, the instrument of its youth, of which Feld knows the song and the nostalgic splendor. The viola main song is supported by a spacious and well worked orchestration.

PRD/DSD 250 239

Anthology dedicated to the memory of one of the great contemporary Czech composers, Jindřich Feld, successor and spiritual heir to Martinů through his non-conformism and his francophilia, humanistic having built a language „out of time“, on the basis of Stravinsky, Bartók and then Berg without erasing his atavistic Slavonic expressionism. His chamber music repertoire is particularly fine and has created a lot of new ways in this genre.

PRAGUE CITY QUARTET

Břetislav NOVOTNÝ, Karel PŘĺBYL, violins/Violinen/violins Lubomír MALÝ, viola/Bratsche/alto – Jan ŠIRC, cello/Violoncello/violoncelle

SMETANA QUARTET

Jiří NOVAK, Lubomír KOSTECKÝ, violins/Violinen/violins Milan SKAMPA, viola/Bratsche/alto – Antonín KOHOUT, cello/Violoncello/violoncelle

Jan TALICH senior, viola

PRAŽÁK QUARTET

Václav REMEŠ , Vlastimil HOLEK, violins/Violinen/violons, Josef KLUSOŇ, viola/Bratsche/alto, Michal KAŇKA, cello/Violoncello/violoncelle

PRD/DSD 350 037

PRAGA DaCamera

PRD 350024

PRD 250 095

PRD 250 138

An original ‘miniature’ portrait of the enfant terrible of ‘cosmopolitan’ Russian music in the years of ‘freedom’ (1910-35), seemingly as unsentimental as capable of the most lyrical outbursts, an often-naive caricaturist respecting classical rules with the greatest formal strictness whilst making ‘the silly geese squawk’ with his irrepressible need to provoke every conformist fashion.

Soloists of the CZECH NONET

Aleš HUSTOLES, clarinet/Klarinette/clarinette, Jiří KREJČĺ, oboe/Oboe/hautbois, Pavel LANGPAUL, bassoon/Fagott/basson, Vladimíra KLÁNSKÁ, French horn/Horn/cor, Martin KOS, violin/Violine/violon, Jan NYKRÝN, viola/Bratsche/alto, Simona HEČOVÁ, cello/Violoncello/violoncelle, Radovan HEČ, double-bass/Kontrabass/contrebasse.

Soloists of the PRAGUE WIND QUINTET

Jurij LIKIN, English horn/Englischhorn/cor anglais, Vlastimil MAREŠ, clarinet/Klarinette/ clarinette, Jan VOBOŘIL, French horn/Horn/cor, Miloš WICHTERLE, bassoon/Fagott/ basson

PRD/DSD 250 216

In his time Anton Reicha was regarded as important composer and influential theorist. Beethoven friend and Haydn’s protégé, only his chamber works (notably those featuring wind instruments) is available today on modern publications. Three examples with the Octet (Vienna, 1807), near a pre-romantic chamber symphony, the Variations for bassoon (¨Paris, 1818) and the ‘Grand Quintetto’ for Horn (Paris, 1828), both with accompagnement de cordes, basic string quartet of course, but brained as a concerto for high level wind soloists and string orchestra. Today, three funny virtuoso chamber works for great pleasure about sound and inventing, paired for the first time to taste mainly the modern wind instruments, emphasized by Berlioz, a Reicha pupil at the same time.

PRD/DSD 250 244