In the middle of May, the Pavel Haas Quartet arrived at the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum in Prague, not to give a concert but to record a new album, the seventh they will have made for Supraphon. The CD will again feature Dvořák’s music. The ensemble have invited along two distinguished guests. The first piece, String Quintet No. 3, has been recorded with the violist Pavel Nikl, a former member of the PHQ.

We asked the cellist Peter Jarůšek about the selected repertoire: “The two Dvořák quintets - the String Quintet No. 3, Op. 97, and the Piano Quintet No. 2, Op. 91 - are very close to our hearts. We are delighted to have the opportunity to make a recording of String Quintet No. 3 with a former member of ours and close friend Pavel Nikl. When it comes to the other guest, the Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg, we have wanted to record Piano Quintet No. 2 ever since we performed it with him for the first time.”

The second part of the CD will be recorded with Boris Giltburg at the end of June, again at the Rudolfinum. The new Pavel Haas Quartet album is scheduled to be released in the autumn of 2017.

Look at the pictures from the recording session here.

At the end of May and the beginning of June, the PHQ will give two recitals in the UK, the first in Guernsey and the second at St. John’s Smith Square in London, where they will play Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2, Op. 91, alongside the Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin. Subsequently, the ensemble will appear at the famous Wiener Konzerthaus and in Thun, Switzerland, performing Schubert’s String Quintet in C major with the Dutch cellist Harriet Krijgh. 

The June programme will include concerts within the Schubertiade festival in Schwarzenberg, Austria, where the Pavel Haas Quartet have been regularly invited since 2007. This year, they will perform Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115, together with the Israeli clarinettist Sharon Kam. In July, the ensemble are scheduled to appear at five concerts within the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Ireland, at the Cheltenham Festival in the UK, and at the international festival in Póvoa, Portugal. The PHQ will round off their season in July at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, where alongside a guest, the Irish pianist Barry Douglas, they will be performing Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F major, Op. 34, and Dvořák’s String Quintet No. 3, again with Pavel Nikl.