Customer Reviews

String Quartets No.2 and No.3

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Thanks to Phoenix for bringing back on CD this landmark Everest recording of Karel Husa's 2nd and 3rd string quartets by the Fine Arts Quartet, to which they added "Evocations de Slovaquie", an early piece for clarinet, viola and cello, which originally came on a Grenadilla LP with Alan Hovhaness' "Firdausi" for clarinet, harp and percusion Op. 252. The information on the CD about recording dates is unfortunately non existent. The quartets were released in 1971 and Evocations in 1977, and the CD was published in 1990.

The 2nd quartet was composed in 1953 at the behest of the French Parrenin Quartet, which later, in 1959, toured with it the United States. George Sopkin, the cellist of the Fine Arts Quartet, attended one of those concerts, liked the work, and the Fine Arts picked it up. That led to the commission given by the Fine Arts Quartet to Husa for another String Quartet, which was completed in 1968 and which, unknown from the composer, was presented by its dedicatees to the much coveted Pulitzer Prize - which it won, in 1969.

The influence of Bartok can be heard in the earlier composition, but Husa is more advanced in his compositional language and fiercer in his expression, as well as starker in the brooding second movement and the slow intro to the third. In the highly virtuosic third quartet Husa uses a wide array of daring playing techniques exploited to coloristic effects: dramatic glissandos, eerie harmonics and strings playing in their extreme registers, col legno staccatos and so forth. In the first movement the viola features predominantly, with wild solos, in the second movement it is the cello and in the third both violins; In the fourth, all instruments come together.

Evocations de Slovaquie was composed in 1951 and is instrumentally (clarinet, viola and cello) and stylistically situated somewhere between Bartok's Contrasts and Rhapsodies for violin. The Long Island Chamber Ensemble is comprised of Lawrence Sobold (clarinet), Louis Schulman (viola) and Timothy Eddy (cello). As for the quartets, they mirror in more than one way (one being, by an extraordinary coincidence, their same years of composition) those of another major contemporary composer from Central Europe: Gyorgy Ligeti, with the early one still indebted to Bartok though already highly personal, and the second breaking new grounds in contemporary string quartet language. As these, those of Husa belong to any collection of contemporary music.

Good notes, including reminiscences by Husa on the circumstances of first performances and recordings. All the interpretations are authoritative, by the composer's own avowal.

If you are among the many people who have never heard Husa's music, I pity you. GET WITH IT! BUY THIS CD!
Here are Husa's three best known chamber works, the second (my personal favorite) and the Pulitzer Prize winning third String Quartets, and Evocations de Slovaquie, which is also quite a trip. His music is atonal, which some people do not particularly care for, but I tell you, even if you avoid atonality like the leprosy, you will still love Karel Husa. I have taken people that don't even like Mozart to Husa concerts, and they always leave with jaws dropped.
The performances are definitely of great substance, too. The Fine Arts Quartet does justice to these rather challenging pieces, and the direction of the Long Island Chamber Ensemble definitely serves "Evocations" well too.
In conclusion, all I can say is that if you don't buy this CD, I will be hurt. I will lock myself in the bathroom and cry for three and a half hours.

If you are among the people on earth who have never heard any music by the esteemed Karel Husa, I pity you. GET WITH IT! You definitely need to buy both this CD and a CD of Music for Prague (which is even better live, by the way). I know there are a lot of people who don't like atonality for a variety of reasons, but I've taken friends who don't even like Mozart to concerts of Husa's music, and they've all walked away with jaws dropped. Husa's music is pure fireworks, as is evidenced by the Fine Arts Quartet's electrifying perfromances of his two most renowned quartets, #'s 2 and 3. Be forewarned, though, Husa is addictive. If you buy this CD, you will probably have to buy every CD of his music you will ever find anywhere. I have had the privelige of meeting and even getting a couple of lessons with Maestro Husa, and all I can say is that there is nothing about this man that is not cool. Buy! Buy! Buy! BUY!!!!!!!