Czech Republic Festival Janáček Brno 2024 [7] – Kaprálová, Janáček, Novák: Janáček Quartet [Miloš Vacek, Richard Kružík [violins], Jan Řezníček [viola], Lukáš Polák [cello]). Villa Löw-Beer, 24.11.2024. (GT)
Vitĕzslava Kaprálová – String Quartet No.1, Op.8
Janáček – Quartet for Two Violins, Viola and Cello ‘Intimate Letters’, JW VII/13
Vitĕzslav Novák – String Quartet No.2 in D major, Op.35
This final chamber recital of Festival Janáček Brno 2024 brought together three composers of twentieth-century Czech music, including, of course, the masterly ‘Intimate Letters’ by Janáček, the sole quartet by the 20-year-old Vitĕzslava Kaprálová, and her teacher Vitĕzslav Novák. The venue for this recital was the magnificent building of the Villa Löw-Beer – now a museum and astutely chosen by the organisers of the festival to illustrate the beauty of Brno’s architecture thankfully untouched by wars or by the modernism of the twentieth century.
The Villa Löw-Beer was built in 1903 by the architect Alexander Neumann for the textile manufacturer Moritz Fuhrmann in art nouveau style. Between 1913 and 1939, it belonged to the industrialist Alfred Löw-Beer, after whom it is called to this day. In its day, it has been used as a Gestapo police headquarters, and after the war as an American Institute, and later a student’s youth centre. Since 2012 the building has been renovated and run as a museum with regular exhibitions for the people of South Moravia. Behind the building are extensive gardens in which the Villa Tugendhat is located and that is a renowned building of twentieth-century modernist architecture. Villa Löw-Beer offers an attractive venue with an audience of about sixty in an intimate atmosphere with seating also available looking down from the second floor; the gardens seen through the rear windows look across to the Villa Tugendhat. The acoustics were excellent with every note clearly heard.
The composer Vitĕzslava Kaprálová (1915-1940) was born in Brno and for me was the most interesting of the composers featured as I had heard much about her immense musical gifts and the tragedy of her passing at only 25 in 1940 from tuberculosis. She was born into a musical family; her father was a composer, and her mother was a singer, and she began studying at Brno Conservatoire and continued her studies in Prague with Vitĕzslav Novák, and in conducting with Vaclav Talich. She also studied with Martinů, and Charles Munch. She developed a conducting career directing her Military Sinfonietta with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She married the writer Jiří Mucha just two months before her passing in Montpellier, France in 1940. She composed many arts songs, chamber music, two piano concertos, and several orchestral pieces. Novák appreciated her talent for setting lyrical works of poetry to music, and tried to restrain her so she could concentrate on other forms in music.
Among the interesting qualities of Kaprálová’s String Quartet is a protracted tonality in embracing condensed harmonies and it has a sophisticated rhythmic structure with some folk influences. The Janáček Quartet’s dedicated, concentrated playing was profoundly impressive and employed a highly intensive degree of expression as if moving through different shades of colour. In Kaprálová’s writing, there seems to be an originality of strong ideas, with rhythms and power and weaving through switching emotions of nostalgia and reminiscence. This was a wonderful performance and leads one to investigate more of her music.
The second of Janáček’s two quartets, ‘Intimate Letters’, relates to his late period and is certainly among his greatest achievements, and notable as he was in love with his correspondent Kamila Stösslová. The work reflects on his life with an emotional openness, and the suddenly transforming passages ranged from mute restraint to exalted uplifting ones and culminated in fervent passion. Another element is that Janáček was able to introduce passages of subtle folk tonality mixed with diatonic chords in D minor. The performance was magnificent, in an intensely dramatic performance with exquisite playing by each member of the ensemble.
A pupil of Dvořák – along with Suk – Vitĕzslav Novák (1870-1949) was from the modern Czech school, and was influenced by Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Berlioz, yet it is Czech, Moravian and Slovak folk song that had a stronger influence on his work. The Second Quartet, which dates from 1905, marks his development from late romanticism into a more personal style. It is in two parts; the first section is a fugue that slowly grows in its passion and nuance. The second movement embraces a long introduction which moves to a lyrical section and into a scherzo prior to its long melodious finale. Novák’s Second Quartet opened up advanced techniques and dense structures of harmony and rhythms, and throughout the forceful twenty-five minutes of this performance, the Janáček Quartet were superb in their playing of this difficultly structured piece. The Janáček Quartet made a powerful argument for this work to be heard more often, together with his other neglected music.
This was an exceptional performance of three quite different Czech string quartets played by one of the world’s finest ensembles and which will last long in my memory after my visit to Brno in 2024 and enhanced by the location of this beautiful venue of the Villa Löw Beer.
Gregor Tassie