LDV18

Your return to the recording studio is devoted to two quartets by Antonín Dvořák. The earlier line-up of the Talich Quartet, led at that time by Petr Messiereur, enjoyed great success with its recording of the ‘American’ Quartet. Would you say you still preserve a link with the sound and the extremely lyrical style of playing that are still so surprising when one listens to that 1976 performance? There are many elements that influence the sonority of a quartet: the character and personality of the musicians, the instruments, the particular approach to the repertory, the work one puts into it, not forgetting the special sound that the formation acquires through digital recording. I remember my father didn’t really like the changes implied by this new recording technique. We still admire the style of the old line-up of the Talich Quartet (as indeed we appreciate those of the Smetana Quartet and the Vlach Quartet). A quartet changes every time a new member arrives. But we try to keep inmind the very specific sound image of the old Talich Quartet, however different it may be from the deliberately demonstrative style of the young quartets of today. And of course we’re conscious of the fact of having grown up, having developed as artists with Czech and Moravian folk music in our ears, those supremely lyrical melodies of Dvořák that constitute the basis of our art, which makes us different from, say, Hungarian musicians who have grown up with the works of Bartók, French musicians with those of Debussy, Austrians confronted with the genius of Beethoven. 22 ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK _STRING QUARTETS Nos10 & 11