Antonin Dvorak: String Quintet in G major with Double Bass op. 77, Piano Quintet no. 2 in A major op. 81.

Antonin Dvorak String Quintet in G major with Double Bass op. 77, Piano Quintet no. 2 in A major op. 81

Laurene Durantel--double bass, Kathryn Stott--piano, The Skampa Quartet: Pavel Fischer, Jana Lukasova--violin, Radim Sedmidubsky--viola, Lukas Polak--cello. Production: Pctr Vit. Text: Cz, Eng., Ger., Fr. Recorded: March 2007, Rudolfinum, Prague. Released: 2007. TT: 71:26. DDD. 1 CD Supraphon SU 3909-2.

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If we take a careful look at the recording activities of the Skampa Quartet we find that apart from special productions that interestingly cross the boundaries of the originally classical gente (for example Janacek with Iva Bittova) and other tasks requiring ordinary recording practise (various string quartets by world masters), the quartet has gradually been building up a model catalogue of the basic works of Czech chamber repertoire. These always take the form of individual projects, but each is very carefully thought out and prepared. Like other Czech quartets the Skampians sometimes work with other colleagues as a way of opening up the repertoire possibilities. Thus in this case an album of two Dvorak quintets has now been added to the ensemble's line of excellent recordings of Czech and world quartet music. The colleagues participating on this CD lend it a special angle of interest; they are the already renowned French double bassist Laurene Durantel and the also internationally well-known English pianist Kathryn Stott. International collaboration of this kind makes possible a wider and more sensitive choice of fellow performers, guaranteeing the closest possible consistency of style. In this case and this context the most successful piece is the Quintet in G major with double bass. Laurene Durantel plays with great refinement and intimacy--he fits absolutely perfectly with the Skampians and the passages where the double bass has the chance to go further than accompaniment are particularly delightful! The whole sound design is excellently balanced--there is absolutely no danger of haziness of the lower frequencies. Renowned for her collaborative projects with leading world instrumentalists and ensembles, here Kathryn Stott displays her outstandingly good technique and experience in the interpretation of chamber music. Compared to the very sober double bass in the Quintet in G major, the piano in the Quintet in A major makes a more robust, and therefore a more individualist than team-orientated impression in the passages where it is not to be dominant. Perhaps some things could be remedied by sound direction. The romantic sensibility of the pianist is also less earthy and more salon in character than that of her colleagues. The members of the Skampa Quartet are absolutely the most convincing to the ear--both in individual performance (for example in the cantilenas of the 1st violin and viola in the 3rd movement of the Quintet in G major!), and in perfect homogeneity, especially in the exquisite, lyrically inward typically Dvorakian passages (the secondary theme of the Quintet in G major, or the theme in the Trio of the 3rd movement of the Quintet in A major or the quietening before the close of the piece!). And last but not least we have the opportunity to savour innumerable charming, perfectly worked details (the elegant secondary theme of the 1st movement of the Quintet in G major). An unambiguously successful recording far above the average and unlikely to date for decades! The building up of a modern archive of representative pieces of Czech chamber music interpreted by the Skampa Quartet continues, and goes from strength to strength