The Talich Quartet has been evolving as part of a prestigious line of musicians for nearly fifty years, representing Czech musical art throughout the world. 

With its legendary name, the latest generation of the Talich Quartet has been performing as a more youthful ensemble since 1998, led by Jan Talich Jr., who took over the reins from his father and is surrounded by talented musicians.They are already paving the legendary string quartet’s future, which draws on tradition and always has. 

In fifty years, the Talich Quartet has forged a style, approach and philosophy of music that the new members will carry on and make flourish. They see this as an opportunity and a challenge. They have deftly found the same lightness of tone, spontaneous expression, unpredictable accents and innate sense of popular allusion of their elders. 

The gradual change of quartet members has sometimes been a painful one, but today the Talich have imposed a style all their own.

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Talich Quartet

Cela lui a pris des décennies avant de se sentir à l’aise avec ce compositeur. Aujourd’hui, il est confiant dans sa manière d’aborder ce répertoire et n’a plus d’états d’âme par rapport à ses partis pris d’interprétation. La musique de Chopin lui procure deux sentiments très forts. On y retrouve d’une part une lecture du sentiment amoureux. Cet aspect le passionne. Par ailleurs, son langage accélère le processus de communication entre l’artiste et le public.

Dans ce répertoire, on ne compte plus les versions de référence, mais l’artiste n’a pas cherché à se mesurer à cela et sa manière d’aborder ce compositeur est intègre, totalement sincère. Chopin représente un véritable défi mais Jean-Philippe Collard a identifié un style qui lui est propre.

Jean-Philippe Collard / Chopin - Sonate n°2 op. 35, « Marche funèbre » (extrait 1er mouvement)

BUXTEHUDE // "In dolci Jubilo"

Publiée originellement chez Calliope, l’intégrale Beethoven des Talich est rééditée dans un coffret de sept disques. Cette somme est celle des certitudes paisibles, d’un Beethoven ni visionnaire, ni vindicatif, plus humain plus que démiurge. Intime et posée, l’expression peut même en devenir trop prudente, cette tranquillité devenant même rédhibitoire dans les menuets, voire dans certains scherzos (Huitième). Tout emballement n’est pas exclu – codas du Quatrième ou du Neuvième – mais sans le moindre effet gratuit, tant le Quatuor Talich, d’une cohésion sans faille autour de son premier violon, Petr Messiereur (à l’intonation néanmoins parfois contestable), maîtrise le propos et maintient, de l’Opus 18 à l’Opus 135, une cohérence d’une rare fermeté.
Car voilà assurément un travail exigeant, qui, peut-être par atavisme, laisse souvent affleurer à la surface des sentiments plus tendres et qui trouve à s’épanouir de manière particulièrement impressionnante dans les derniers Quatuors.

Beethoven : intégrale des Quatuors à cordes

13e Quatuor en si bémol majeur op.130 - Alla danza tedesca (Allegro assai)

BEETHOVEN - Quatuor à cordes n°13, op.130 (alla danza tedesca)

Major discoveries!
These three string quartets have much to offer in their charming melodies, strong rhythms, and pleasant moods. They deserve some critical attention as representative examples of early nineteenth century "brilliant" quartets, works composed for concert performance that usually featured a dazzling part for the first violin. 
The Talich Quartet delivers these bonbons with a light touch, and the engaging character of these pieces comes through in the group's agreeable repartee and buoyant energy, which is especially lively in the Scherzo movements. Sound is exceptional, so the strings feel vibrant and sharply defined in a warm and resonant environment.

KALLIWODA, String quartet no.1 in E minor, op.61

A lively yet sensitive, generously coupled disc
Here is a set of brilliant but not dazzling performances of Mendelssohn’s Op 44 Quartets: that is to say, they illuminate the music but never blind the listener with empty demonstration of the player’s virtuosity. This outstanding reissue offers terrific playing and outstanding sound. The interpretations are spontaneous enough to seem live.

“Typically feisty playing from this outstanding Czech Quartet who project the quasi-orchestral opening of the D major with vigour and provide plenty of passion and urgency for the darker E minor. An incredible bargain” (BBC Music Magazine)

MENDELSSOHN, String quartet no.3 in D major, op.44 no.1 (Molto allegro vivace)

FIRST RELEASE ON CD
Eine kleine Nachtmusik (Serenade no.13 for strings in G major, K525)
Adagio and Fugue in c minor, K546
Divertimenti for strings K.136-138

‘With the Talich Quartet, this intimate Mozart sings and smiles, weeps and dreams, experiences despair and exhilaration. The Quartet’s unusually tense yet sensuous interpretation forces one’s admiration. Rarely has Mozart playing so judiciously achieved plenitude, displayed such joy and charm. Everything here is happiness and luminosity. A state of grace, as it were.’

MOZART, Eine kleine Nachtmusik k525 (Menuetto : allegretto)

SCHUMANN // Quatuor à cordes en la mineur, op.41/1 - Scherzo // Quatuor Hermès

メナヘム・プレスラーは、モーツァルトのピアノ・ソ
ナタ全集第2弾において、稀にみる静穏さと優し
さをこのレパートリーにもたらした。彼は時を引
き伸ばし、音響世界に身を浸しながら、多彩な音
色、ハーモニーの微細な変化、各フレーズの輪郭
の美しさを際立たせていく。
長い年月をかけて音楽の真髄を探求してきたプ
レスラーがいざなう、魅惑的な音の旅。

モーツァルト, ピアノ・ソナタ第13番 変ロ長調 K.333 / アレグロ

Janáček's First String Quartet is one of the summits of his art. But it was equalled, and possibly surpassed, by the second. At 74, he was still full of vitality and the joy of living. In 1928, the year of his death, in love more than ever with Kamila, he wrote his last and greatest masterpiece.
His two quartets are declarations: love of life, love of a woman. The intensity of the feelings summoned here can only be expressed by extra-verbals means, in a paroxysm of sound: "You know", wrote Janáček to Kamila, "sometimes the feelings are in themselves so strong that the notes conceal behind them an escape".

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Janáček, String Quartet No.2,  Intimate Letters  - Allegro

The Bohemian Quartet asked Janáček to write a string quartet for them. He had not yet seriously approached the genre, or at least, not since his years of training in Vienna, around 1880. It was his memories of Tolstoy's famous short novel "The Kreutzer Sonata" that inspired the composition. In eight days he composed this quartet in praise of woman and love, thus opposing the moral sanction raised by Tolstoy himself against the adulterous woman in his novel. In his works Janáček often shows compassion for women who are ridiculed and humiliated. Here, to bring out the raw passions that are present in the novel he uses the art of contrast and harmonic tension in gripping and anguished phrases. Through the voice of each instrument, his writing follows closely the murmurs and complaints, violence and terror experienced by the characters, thus creating a wordless drama.

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Janáček, String Quartet No.1 "The Kreutzer Sonata"  - Adagio, con moto

This work has nothing of the classical divertissement, but is rather a deeply romantic piece, although its texture does not renounce long developments or phrases or phrases irregular in rhythm and mood. It was later nicknamed the "Frühlingssextet" (Spring Sextet), obviously in tribute to Beethoven. Its elegance, subtlety and apparent naturalness conceal the difficulties the young Brahms experienced in writing this piece and which led him to ask Joachim to check the manuscript. The violinist suggested several important changes and Brahms followed his shrewd advice.

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Brahms, String Sextet No.1 in B flat major Op.18 - Andante, ma moderato

Spilville is a small town in Iowa. It was there, between 8 and 23 June 1893, that Dvořák composed his most famous chamber work, the String Quartet in F major (the "American").
Dvořák expressed his nostalgia in the great works he composed from 1892 to 1895, including the String Quintet Op.97.

Dvořák, String Quartet No.12 in F major "American" Op.96 - Allegro ma non troppo

Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) is one of those unfortunate composers whose major works are obscured by the celebrity of their first performances. He composed, in the last years of his life (between 1876 and 1883), two masterpieces: two string quartets which are as unclassifiable as Beethoven’s last quartets. But this is the only similarity, because whereas for Beethoven the gradual onset of this deafness meant that he was no longer encumbered by sound and could turn his deafness to his advantage in writing music in total freedom, Smetana, who was brutally struck by deafness during the night of 19 to 20 October 1874, turned back on himself. From then on and more relentlessly than ever before, he went in quest of his own roots.

The first quartet, ‘From my Life’, in E minor, tells a story. But it is far from being descriptive music. The writing is of extraordinary richness and vivacity. The first chord is certainly one of the most pathos-laden moments in music since the first seven bars of Schumann’s Scenes from Faust. Smetana, a great admirer of Chopin, was inspired by folk music without ever copying it. The quartet is a discreet summary of his life in four movements. It represents youth, with its enthusiasms, its adventures and its hopes but with a premonition of tragic events. The second (Allegro a la polka) is freedom from care and the dance, the deep heart of Bohemia. The third movement is a song of love to his adored wife. And the final movement is all happiness, then, in a single chord, deafness strikes like an axe into a tree trunk.

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Smetana - String Quartet No.1 in E minor "From my life" - Allegro vivo appassionato

The stifling String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, op. 110 is very different of the Piano Quintet op.57. It was written in 1960, when the Shostakovich’s life was again clouded, and he had recently been through a serious inspirational crisis. In the ruins of Dresden, he attempted to complete his music for the film Five days - five nights. This new quartet was written in just three days, between 12 and 14 July. Shostakovich had this to say about it:
‘I composed my Quartet No. 8 with the idea that, if I happened to die, no one would think of writing a work to my memory. I therefore decided to write it myself. The cover could bear the words: “Dedicated to the author of this quartet”. The main theme of the quartet consists of the notes D. Es. C. H., that is to say, my initials [i.e. D. Sch, the German transliteration of his name] and I have quoted some of my own works - a short anthology!’
The work was first performed on 2 October 1960 by the Beethoven Quartet.

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Shostakovich, String Quartet No.8 in C minor Op.110 - Allegro molto

Geoffroy Couteau continue à servir l’œuvre de Brahms, ici en compagnie du violoncelliste Raphaël Perraud, avec la ferveur qu’on lui a connu dans son intégrale pour piano parue au Printemps 2016.
Comme les trois sonates pour violon et piano, les deux sonates pour violoncelle et piano constituent des pages de première importance dans le corpus de Brahms. Puissamment lyriques, royaume de l’intériorité pure, elles fournissent un aperçu de sa période de jeunesse comme celle de sa grande maturité, voisine de sa quatrième et ultime symphonie. Sommets de la musique de chambre, ces Sonates d’une humanité protéiforme exigent de leurs interprètes autant de complémentarité que d’osmose.
Geoffroy Couteau et Raphaël Perraud imposent un équilibre savamment mûri. Douceur et emportement, mélancolie et frénésie, méditation et exaltation s’y côtoient en des inflexions d’une éloquente spontanéité. L’aspect fantastique de ce combat entre violoncelle et piano ne cesse de gagner en profondeur et en lyrisme au fil de ce programme.

BRAHMS, Cello Sonata no.1 in E minor, op.38 - Allegro non troppo

Creativity is not something that can be turned on and off like a tap . . . 
Art is a labour of love, a question of patience and concentration. To place demands on it, criteria, quotas, damages it, slowly kills it. Art, like nature, must be allowed to develop and to grow, in order to attain plenitude. Following this principle, La Dolce Volta prefers to privilege quality over quantity. Releases are limited to ten albums a year, but each of them is the fruit of in-depth work, and above all a special relationship between the soloist and the composer. The artists’ virtuosity is coupled with their ineffable and highly personal approach, a feeling that can only be expressed through music. 
And since jewels worthy of the name can only be offered in special cases, the albums La Dolce Volta releases are themselves works of art: each record cover is an original work of art; the digipack’s inner sleeve includes a booklet in four languages and an interview with the musician. A bandeau is wrapped around each album, on which is printed the name of the soloist, the name of the composer, and the work performed. 
For La Dolce Volta, music is not just a shrink-wrapped object for sale. Like all beautiful things in life, it must come to fruition naturally, the result of careful craftsmanship, and offered like an exquisite flower. 
For La Dolce Volta music is a question of elegance and beauty without concessions.

Shostakovich, String Quartet No.8 in C minor Op.110 - Allegro molto

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