Novák: Complete String Quartets

Vítězslav Novák’s complete quartets for the first time in the anointed hands of the Stamic Quartet.

For an impressive forty years, the Stamic Quartet (established in 1985) have been enjoying countless international successes both in concert performances and studio recordings. Just during the last fifteen years, the Supraphon label has released albums of the ensemble featuring the first recordings of the complete works for string quartet by J.B. Foerster (2010), Sofia Gubaidulina (2012), and Karel Kovařovic (2019). For the Stamic Quartet’s fortieth anniversary, they have recorded this complete set of Vítězslav Novák’s quartets, which also definitely completes the ensemble’s remarkable list of recordings.

Nearly forty years separate the First Quartet by Dvořák’s 29-year-old pupil, inspired by the countryside of Moravia and Slovakia and by folk music, from the Third Quartet, with its anxious premonitions of war. The works demonstrate a considerable stylistic shift in the composer’s musical language. From the foundations of the musical traditions of Romanticism, through inspiration from Moravian and Slovak folklore, Novák arrived at a personal style with integral components including the church modes, the sonic world of Impressionism, a polyphonic sensibility for musical structure (as is clear from the extensive fugue of the Second Quartet), and rhythmic richness. The experienced Stamic Quartet is the first ensemble to record Novák’s complete quartets, and it has done so with commitment that would be the envy of many young ensembles.