Hi, thanks for sharing! I was wondering which edition of the score did you used for the video, because mine (Barenreiter 2009) shows a different pedal indication at 11:28 . Thank you! :)
The quartet [founded in 2002] is named after the Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899-1944), who was deported from Czechoslovakia in 1941, initially imprisoned at the work camp Terezin, and finally murdered at Auschwitz. Although aware of the significance of the circumstances of Haas's final years, the group did not intend to make a statement about The Holocaust, but rather selected the name primarily because of his importance to Czech music and in particular because of his three string quartets, all of which they have now recorded. [Veronika] Jarůšková [first violinist] has said: "We know personally the daughter of Pavel Haas. She doesn't like to speak about the time before the war. She showed us some papers and a book he wrote about her when she was born." Jarůšek added: "She also showed us the reviews. Every review of his Second Quartet was bad."[5] [Wikipedia]
I've been in love with this piece from the moment I heard it first, about 15 years ago. The second movement is still hard to bear in its depressiveness. - Could perhaps anyone help with some basic background information? I still don't know what or where the "Monkey Mountains" are ... ?
The title of the quartet is somewhat provocative: in Czech, the "Monkey Mountains" used to be the nickname of the Vysočina Region (Moravian Highlands), an area once popular with tourists. The work was premièred in Brno on 16 March 1926, by the Moravian Quartet. The first performance was not well received, however: in the last movement, Haas added a percussionist, in combination with other unusual musical elements, and this daring experiment was not appreciated by the audience. Haas subsequently removed the percussion, though several modern performances and recordings have reinstated it.[1] [Wikipedia]
God, absolute beginners, with less than a month of learning, are more competent than this, literally. Modern art is a cult. It has nothing to do with "art" it just uses the history of art as an excuse to push a religion.
0:00 I. Krajina/Landscape/Landschaft 10:08 II. Kočár, koči a kůň/Coach, Coachmen and Horse/Kutsche, Kutscher und Pferd 14:54 III. Měsíc a já/The Moon and I/Der Mond und ich 22:50 Divá noc/A Wild Night/Wilde Nacht