It’s odd to see Smetana described as a “neo-Romantic composer” in the sleevenotes to the Pavel Haas Quartet’s pairing of his two quartets. Something seems to have gone missing in translation from the Czech original, for the Romanticism of the opening of the First Quartet is as full-blooded and unqualified as anything in the 19th-century quartet repertory. In the right performance, too, the quartet can be as shattering as any other. But while there are lots of fine things about the Pavel Haas performances – their account of the lighter-weight Second Quartet is extremely good – they don’t quite get to the root of the anguish of its predecessor. Smetana did, after all, intend the First Quartet as a personal statement, subtitling it From My Life, and the impact of the closing pages of the finale – which brings the return of the dramatic falling fifth of the opening and a whistling high E to signal the tinnitus from which the composer suffered towards the end of his life – can be devastating. While everything is there in this performance, it doesn’t create the shivers it should.
