 On n’y prend pas garde, mais avec son Premier Quatuor pour piano et cordes, Antonin Dvorak affirmait une musique de chambre résolument ancrée dans l’identité musicale tchèque. Le ton de rêverie bucolique – avec quelques nuages - qui ouvre cet opus serein dont l’Andantino a tout de même encore une pointe de Schubert dans sa mélodie et sa scansion, donne le ton d’une partition où la lyrique slave s’infuse à mesure : elle débordera dans un finale qui est une vraie danse scherzando. Quatorze années plus tard, le Quatuor en mi bémol majeur qui ajoute un scherzo plein de charmes, ébroue ses harmonies colorées dans une langue totalement formée sur les idiomes de la musique populaire mais que Dvorak raffine à l’extrême, cachant l’art par l’art. On le fait souvent brillant ce qui en minimise la portée poétique. Les amis du Dvorak Piano Quartet s’en gardent bien, le jouant très lyrique, détaillant ses beautés, le piano chantant et pourtant très composé de Slavka Vernerova-Pechocova donnant le ton d’un raffinement extrême qui déjà magnifiait l’opus 23, si bien qu’on tient là un regard absolument neuf sur deux partitions assez illustrées au disque, et de belle manière. Laissez-vous tenter. (Discophilia - Artalinna.com) (Jean-Charles Hoffelé) Antonín Dvorák has a passion for chamber music; he liked playing it with friends, and perhaps soon came to realise how good a commercial commodity such pieces represented. He wrote the first of his two piano quartets, Op. 23, at the age of 34, by which time many a publisher was interested in his works. The period Czech media voiced their satisfaction that Dvorák had moved beyond foreign influence, with the Slavic spirit having prevailed in his music. Cases in point include his Moravian Duets, Op. 20, and Serenades, Op. 22, created at the same time. The publisher Fritz Simrock bitterly regretted having rejected the first quartet, persistently reminding the composer: “I would gladly take a piano quartet, preferably even two”. When in the summer of 1889 Dvorák got down to writing his second quartet, he complained of having a “slow hand”, yet stressed that he had plenty of ideas: “My head is full of it ... I have finished three movements of a new quartet with piano, and the finale will be ready in a few days. It has gone smoothly beyond expectation, with the melodies rolling in to me”. The sheer beauty of the piece was cogently described by the prominent Vienna-based critic Eduard Hanslick: “ The quartet requires that the listener be considerably attentive and well informed, which, however, really pays off.” The ensemble bearing the composer’s name have linked up to the feted tradition of their great teachers – Ivan Moravec, Josef Vlach and Milan Škampa. They present Dvorák at his finest, both conventional and sophisticated.
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