Quartet in the Heart of Valtice

The ballroom of the Valtice castle will be resounded with compositions of Czech musicians who have travelled to America. The String Quartet by B. Martinů, premiered in the US, will be followed by E. W. Korngold’s Quartet written in American exile, and the evening will be closed with the String Quartet no. 14 by A. Dvořák, which first draft was made in New York. All performed by the world-renowned Pavel Haas Quartet.

Pavel Haas Quartet

The Pavel Haas Quartet is one of the world’s leading chamber ensembles. The ensemble performs in the world’s most prestigious concert halls and has won five Gramophone Awards and numerous other major prizes for its recordings. In 2022, BBC Music Magazine named them one of the 10 greatest string quartets of all time.

Since September 2022, the ensemble has been the ensemble-in-residence at Dvořákova Praha Music Festival, programming its chamber concerts and performing all of Dvořák’s string quartets and chamber works over three seasons.

Since winning the Paolo Borciani Competition in Italy in 2005, other highlights of their early career include a nomination for ECHO Rising Stars in 2007, participation in the BBC New Generation Artists programme from 2007-2009 and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Special Ensemble Fellowship awarded in 2010.

The Pavel Haas Quartet was founded in 2002 by violinist Veronika Jarůšková with violist Pavel Nikl, who was a member until 2016. Pavel Nikl has been a regular guest of the ensemble for performances of string quintets. The members of Pavel Haas Quartet studied with the legendary violist of the Smetana Quartet, Milan Škampa. The ensemble bears the name of Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899—1944), Janáček’s most promising pupil, who was imprisoned by the Nazis in the Terezín ghetto in 1941 and tortured three years later in the Auschwitz concentration camp. His musical legacy includes three magnificent string quartets.