Novak String Quartet no.3 - SWR Classic Archive

[eschiss1]

I don't know if SWR Classic Archive makes things available for download or as CDs, but I did just see this @ NML: the Novák Quartet performing Vitezslav Novak's late (3rd) string quartet (op.66, (in G?), 1938). (I've heard an LP of what may have been a different performance? quite a few times. I uploaded it to our "downloads" section back in the day, but did not provide movement info as I had none to give. This recording lasts 25 minutes in 2 movements: Allegro risoluto, Lento doloroso.) Wonderful work imhonesto. Written around the same time as his cello sonata in G minor (Op.68, 1941) (released on the same LP as the one previous recording of the quartet, and of which there -is- a more modern recording.)


(About as Romantic as his fellow-Dvorak-pupil Josef Suk's string quartet no.2 of a few decades earlier.)

[matesic]

I'm very impressed by his second quartet, also in two movements. I'll see if I can find your LP upload

[matesic]

Found the cello sonata on mediafire but no SQ3 - could you possible upload it again?

[matesic]

Aha - it's in the Naxos Music Library. Sounds like a (very serviceable) mono recording from the 1950's. Definitely romantic!

[eschiss1]

It may be the same recording as on the LP. Might be I never did upload it... (edit: no it couldn't, see below!)

[matesic]

Have you now ditched all your LPs? The last 1500 of mine went a few months ago, all but a few with sentimental associations.

Very nice No3 is, the polka first movement reminding me of Smetana. I see there are a few recordings of No2 but strangely the only recording of No1 I can find are the excerpts on editionsilvertrust.com whose source is undisclosed. Seems like a significant gap in the discography that some young Czech group should fill.

[Santo Neuenwelt]

Novak's String Quartet No.1 was recorded by the Novak Quartet on  Supraphon LP SUA 105.

Is the download to No.3 in the download library or not?

[eschiss1]

 No, fairly sure I never uploaded it after all.
As to my lps, it wasn't even -my- lp, but I can't find the tape or digital copy that may have been made for me either... and yes most of my few lps are now gone i think.

Per http://www.worldcat.org/title/smyccovy-kvartet-c-3-op-66-sonata-g-moll-pro-violoncello-a-klavir-op-68-jednoveta/oclc/3662746&referer=brief_results Quartet 3 was recorded in 1971.  Maybe the SWR recording is a SWR broadcast archive- which is per the label silly Eric- and coukd well be from the 50s...

[eschiss1]

Esp since the lp is (performed by) the Vlach Quartet not the Novák

[semloh]

I think the string quartets of Novak have been inadequately represented on LP and CD. The 1st is a gem (the old Supraphon recording); the 2nd is readily available on a Centaur CD, played by the Kubin Qt.; but the 3rd is unknown to me. It's a poor showing for such fine music.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

The D major quartet - the 2nd - also has a remarkably fine recording by the Smetana Quartet, and is available in a 3 CD set on Supraphon called 'The Best of Czech Classics: String Quartets'. So at least there's some choice as regards this work.

I don't have the "old Supraphon recording" of the 1st, and it seems quite unavailable. And, like Semloh, the 3rd is wholly unknown to me.

But it's strange, given that many of Novak's orchestral works are well represented on disc, that these three quartets seem to have been passed over. As Matesic remarks in an earlier post it would be good indeed if some Czech quartet, whether young or old, took on board these works. I wonder if they get much of a representation in concerts in their own country?

[chill319]

Novak's String Quartet No.1 was recorded by the Novak Quartet on  Supraphon LP SUA 105.

In the U.S., that recording was licensed by CBS and released on Crossroads 22 16 0047 (mono) and 22 16 0048 (stereo). The 1899 G-major quartet has perhaps more in common with the earlier Serenade in F major, op. 9, than it does with the music Novak wrote in the following decade.

[eschiss1]

Correction: op.9 does not belong to the orchestral serenade in F afaik, which lacks an op # (Marco Polo notwithstanding), but to a piano serenade.

[chill319]

Thanks, Eric. You're right, I was trusting the Marco Polo.

And as long as we're getting details right, let me add that the first quartet has a bit more arching drama in it than the tuneful Serenade in F, even if the quartet is still hewing to an overall idyllic (Fibich-inflected?) line. Novak has moved part of the way toward "In the Tatras."

[matesic]

Our quartet played through two movements of the first quartet yesterday! It seems more oblique, modern if you like, than I'd expected for 1902 and well worth reviving. I'll see if I can multitrack it.