Czech Chamber Music Society • Josef Suk Piano Quartet

The first piano quartet by the French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) came into being between 1876 and 1879 and was premiered in Paris on 14 February 1880 at a concert organized by the Société nationale de musique, of which Fauré was a founding member. The first performers were Olive Musin (violin) and Louis van Waefelghem (viola), both originally from Belgium, cellist Ermanno Mariotti, and the composer himself at the piano. Fauré’s second Piano Quartet in G minor dates from 1886; he also composed two piano quintets and a piano trio. All of these works are in minor keys, as are his violin and cello sonatas and the string quartet he composed in the final year of his life. According to some, the Piano Quartet in C minor was inspired by the composer’s relationship with Marianne Viardot, daughter of the renowned singer Pauline Viardot; however, the relationship ended in a breakup. The composition is imbued with a lyrical mood, a touch of melancholy and nostalgia, feelings typically associated with minor keys, which might correspond to the work’s inspiration, although this is not particularly evident in it. However, we do not know the original final movement since Fauré composed a new one in 1883 and the original version has not survived. The first movement in sonata form is an uninterrupted flow of music, with the secondary theme contrasting only slightly with the main one. The scherzo is characterized by playfulness; a defining feature is the polarity between major and minor modes, which also prevails in the immensely evocative slow movement. The final movement, again in sonata form, with a first theme in the main key of C minor and a second contrasting theme of indeterminate tonality, leads to a conclusion in C major, which – in light of the personal context mentioned above – can be interpreted as coming to terms with disappointment.

Thomas Adès (*1971), the Czech Philharmonic’s composer-in-residence for the current season, wrote his one-movement Piano Quintet, Op. 20, for the British Arditti Quartet on the occasion of the Melbourne International Festival, where it received its world premiere on 29 October 2001 with the composer playing the piano. In the years that followed, the same ensemble performed the work for audiences in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Norway, and elsewhere, and despite its immense difficulty, other ensembles – including the Czech ensemble Josef Suk Piano Quartet – added the work to their repertoires. The structure of the work roughly corresponds to the traditional sonata form, including a repeat of the exposition section; however, the details of the treatment of the thematic material are quite unique. Key compositional elements include polyrhythm and polymeter – sections in which the piano and string quartet move in different time signatures (2/6, 4/6, 2/5, 3/16, and a whole range of other fractions, with numerous triplets, etc.). The prescribed time signatures are constantly changing, often over an ostinato rhythmic foundation, creating a contrapuntal texture that nevertheless remains clear and organized, without losing its classical tonal foundation. Throughout the composition, the tempo and the sense of its temporal progression change, with the musical material constantly transforming until it reaches a dramatic climax.

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) composed three piano quartets. In 1862 – the year in which he composed the Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor – he visited Vienna for the first time, and the city soon became his home. The chamber ensemble consisting of three stringed instruments and a piano, as developed by Romanticism, traces its origins to the music by W. A. Mozart: in his compositions, the keyboard instrument, which until then had played a supporting role in such ensembles by providing harmonic foundation, comes to the forefront, while the strings take on the role of accompaniment and enrich the tonal spectrum. Both Mozart and Brahms were pianists, and the character of the piano part also attests to their artistry as performers. In Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, a defining feature is the influence of the music he used to hear in Vienna’s Prater from Gypsy bands from Hungary. Brahms’s close friends included the violinists Joseph Joachim and Eduard Reményi. Both were from Hungary, and the “zingarisms” in Brahms’s music thus served as a kind of tribute to their friendship. These elements are a key feature of the Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, and it was no coincidence that Brahms chose this work for his Viennese debut on 16 November 1862, when he performed with the Hellmesberger Quartet as both composer and pianist. The stylization of Hungarian influences can be found in the melodies, in the chromatic progressions of the harmony, in the rhythms of the accompanying parts, and in the ornamentation. Arnold Schoenberg, a musical innovator of the 20th century, held Brahms’s work in very high regard. He arranged the Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor for orchestra and explained his rationale behind his orchestration as follows: “1. I like the piece. 2. It is seldom played. 3. It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything.”

The Josef Suk Piano Quartet, which has been performing under its current name since 2014, is named after the violinist Josef Suk (1929–2011), one of the greatest figures of the 20th-century violin generation, the grandson of the composer Josef Suk and the great-grandson of Antonín Dvořák. The honour of bearing the name of such a distinguished Czech artist was initiated by the Czech Chamber Music Society, with the kind permission of Josef Suk’s wife, Mrs Marie Suková. The ensemble thus continues the rich tradition of Czech chamber music ensembles, particularly the famous Suk Trio.

However, the ensemble’s origins date back several years earlier – it was founded by the violinist Radim Kresta in 2007, originally as a piano trio under the name Taras Piano Trio. In this line-up, the ensemble won a number of awards at international competitions (the International Johannes Brahms Competition in Austria, and the Italian international competitions Rovere d’Oro and Val Tidone Music Competitions). From the second half of 2012, the ensemble performed under the name Ensemble Taras as a piano quartet. In 2013, the ensemble achieved outstanding success with two victories at international competitions – in May 2013 at the Concorso Salieri-Zinetti in Verona and in September 2013 at one of the most prestigious competitions in this field, the ACM Premio Trio di Trieste.

Josef Suk Piano Quartet is also the recipient of the Czech Chamber Music Society Prize for 2014. Thanks to these achievements, the ensemble has had the opportunity to perform at many prestigious venues around the world and to record its debut CD and DVD for Limen Music and Arts, featuring music by Fauré and Brahms, as well as a CD for Azzura Music, also featuring works by Brahms and Mahler. In 2017, the ensemble released its latest quartet CD on the Supraphon label, featuring works by Josef Suk and Antonín Dvořák, which immediately received very positive reviews from critics both at home and abroad (including in the prestigious British newspapers The Guardian, Gramophone and MusicWeb International). The quartet has also recorded live for Italian, Austrian and Czech radio, performs regularly both at home and abroad, and is invited to a number of music festivals.

The quartet’s repertoire includes key works ranging from the Classical period to the present day, with a particular focus on works by Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák, Josef Suk and Bohuslav Martinů, as well as significant 20th-century works and contemporary pieces. The quartet regularly premieres compositions dedicated to it by prominent composers such as Jean-Luc Darbelay, Max E. Keller, Matteo D’Amico, Marta Jiráčková and Jiří Gemrot. At its concerts, the ensemble also performs in other formations, such as a piano trio or a string trio (under the name Josef Suk Trio). As its members say: “The piano quartet is the ideal ensemble for us. It offers a wealth of possibilities and enjoyment for lovers of chamber music. It embodies the potential of a wide variety of chamber ensembles, from duos to string or piano trios; the piano quartet line-up can even stand in for an entire orchestra, and some works written for this line-up are true symphonies.”

Radka Dohnalová is a Czech violinist who currently lives and works in the Netherlands. From childhood, she has taken part in numerous competitions and performed in many radio and television programmes. She graduated from the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava, after which she went on to study at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where she studied in Professor Ivan Štraus’s violin class. She furthered her studies at the Utrecht Conservatory, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree. As both a soloist and a chamber musician, she has performed with several ensembles both in the Czech Republic and abroad; of particular note is her collaboration with pianist Daniel Adni, with whom she has appeared in a number of concerts and made several recordings. Radka Dohnalová is, however, primarily known as an orchestral musician – she was one of the founding members of the Prague Chamber Philharmonic (now known as the Prague Philharmonia); between 2006 and 2008 she was a member of the Prague Symphony Orchestra; and since 2017 she has been a violinist with the Dutch orchestra Het Balletorkest, based in Amsterdam.