String Quartet (1981) - Petr Eben
Meditation - Suk
String Quartet No.2 in D minor - Smetana Quartet No.12 in E flat, Op 127 - Beethoven
The characterful playing of the Skampa String Quartet must have endeared it to audiences from Clifden to Carlingford and from Thomastown to Omagh. This latest visit to Ireland, touring under the auspices of Music Network/ESB, could not fail to have won converts to the medium of the string quartet, such was the raw energy and the irresistible surge of the music, presented with immediacy of attack and vivid chiaroscuro.
That here was a Czech quartet playing Czech music may have had something to do with it: the brief encore was a folk dance played with such abandon and explosive enthusiasm that there isn't a folk group that couldn't have learnt from it. A similar freedom of gesture enlivened Petr Eben's Quartet which dates from 1981. This work's subtitle, "Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart", gives some idea of the complexity of mood and texture it embodies; its musical lineage probably includes the names of Bartok and Janacek and Smetana (the Smetana of the troubled Quartet No.2, not of The Bartered Bride) as well as the previous works of Eben himself. The performance was forceful and kept the attention fully engaged.
Suk's Meditation (on an old Czech hymn) showed that Skampa could play in a calmer, more pensive style, without losing any forward impulse so that the transformation of the hymn into something more like a national anthem was not contrary to one's musical expectations.
Smetana's Quartet No.2 lacks the romantic charm of the better-known No.1 (from From My Life); it is No.1 seen through a distorting mirror and Eben's subtitle would not have been out of place for it. The performance made both works speak in the language of this century.
The Skampa put its individual mark on Beethoven's Op.127 and persuaded one of its validity; there was no sentimentality but it was not without tenderness; however there were moments when a hint of relaxation might have made the music even more persuasive if no less exciting.
