The PRAŽÁK QUARTET counts among the elite of the major international ensembles. All the music reviewers and magazines acknowledge its mastery and exceptional involvement. After nearly 30 years of playing together, it performed the complete cycle of the BEETHOVEN String Quartets in concert (2000-2004) and on records This fourth volume (in true chronological order), pairing the two masterpieces of 1809-10, is immediately representative of the talent and artistry inherited from its masters, the VLACH and SMETANA QUARTETS, as well as the LASALLE QUARTET. A diptych (1809-1810) of Goethean mood, the opus 74 with its heroic tone contemporary with the «Emperor» piano concerto, the opus 95 with its final deriving its triumph willpower from Egmont overture, while the general surroundings are rather bitter. The Pražák give without consideration the moments of heartache as those of tenderness, of vehemence as of melancholy, eventually of serenity when «a divine hand lays on peace over a burning forehead».
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