One of the group of composers who were deported to the ghetto camp at Terezín, Hans Krása is best known for his String Quartet and his children’s opera Brundibar, of which no fewer than four recordings have appeared. In fact all but one of the works in this collection have been recorded before, but his personality emerges all the more clearly from devoting an entire disc to him, especially since the pieces are played in chronological order.
The ‘new’ piece is the 1935 Chamber Music, for the strange but effective combination of solo harpsichord with four clarinets, trumpet, cello and double-bass; the soloist in this performance is a survivor of Terezín herself. Like the Theme with Variations, originally written in the same year, it is based on a song by Krása that achieved ‘hit parade’ status in pre-war Czechoslovakia, but whereas the Variations stick fairly closely to that nostalgic little tune, here it is the subject of a quasi-baroque invention, including a fugue, and a very fertile development – at times sounding quite startlingly like Shostakovich – before the theme returns, seeming all the closer to Kurt Weill for being played on an alto saxophone.
The transition from this music, at times jocular in its resourceful second-guessing of the listener, to the pieces for string trio that Krasa wrote shortly before his death in Auschwitz, is moving. His rapid changes of mood are still evident in the brief Tanec (Dance), but the overall impression is of nervous disquiet. The Passacaglia, based on a sombre eight-bar theme, rises to great and poignant eloquence before the music quickens to a jovial fugue. But this ends, disquietingly, with a sudden, wild acceleration.
The very fine but much earlier String Quartet receives a performance in which the rapid changes of mood and apparently of style (a Czech vein, close to Janáček, more than a hint of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale, again distinct kinships with Shostakovich) are emphasized by a very wide range of attack and tone colour, at times harsh or reedy, at others almost disembodied. I enjoyed this performance very much, as I did the others on this well-recorded disc, which gives as complete a portrait of Hans Krása as we are likely to find.” Michael Oliver (Gramophone)
Awards: 4* by Le Monde de la Musique, 5 by Diapason, 10 by
Répertoire, Recommended by Classica, BBC Music Magazine
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released September 1, 1997
Kocian Quartet (Ensemble)
Zuzana Růžičková - Harpsichord
Recorded by the Radio Suisse Romande in the Geneva Studio "Ernest Ansermer"
Date : January 31 - February 1, April 14 (5-6) 1997
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