Janáček – the power of love

The latest CD release from

the New Zealand String Quartet

Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9, known as The Kreutzer Sonata, is a long work of extreme technical demands and ardent emotions. In 1889 Tolstoy wrote a novella called “The Kreutzer Sonata”, the story of a man consumed by jealous rage who has murdered his pianist wife with a dagger after she committed adultery with the violinist with whom she played The Kreutzer Sonata. Tolstoy’s story is told by the murderer to a man he meets on a train.

In 1923, the Czech composer Janáček wrote his String Quartet No.1 “Kreutzer Sonata” in just a couple of weeks. Already in the grip of a passionate and inspirational friendship with a married woman 38 years his junior, Kamila Stösslová, he explained his new work in one of the over 700 letters they exchanged. “I was imagining a poor woman, tormented and run down, just like the one Tolstoy describes in his Kreutzer Sonata”.  

Five years later, in the last year of his life, Janáček wrote his 2nd String Quartet, “Intimate Letters”. The work’s nickname, given by the composer, explicitly acknowledges his love for Stösslová. “These notes of mine kiss all of you,” he wrote.

Janáček’s two romantic and passionate Quartets are well-established and beloved in the classical repertoire. The New Zealand String Quartet has performed them numerous times and has now released both on their latest album with fine performances emphasising the contrasts between them. Their Quartet No.1 is full of anguish and eroticism, rushing forward like Tolstoy’s train; the 2nd expresses exquisite yearning and occasional wild abandon.

New Zealand String Quartet

Photo credit: Bruce Foster

This is splendidly communicative playing, transcending huge technical and emotional demands to bring us the power and colour of Janáček’s music. The NZSQ covers the full expressive gamut, enhanced by their flexible responsiveness to one another within the ensemble.

The recording was made in the expansive acoustic of St Anne’s Church in Toronto, Ontario with producer/engineer Norbert Kraft, a long-time NZSQ collaborator. This spacious venue allows listener perspective on the intensity of the music. Two charming encore pieces, cellist Rolf Gjelsten’s arrangements of Sonnets for violins by Janáček, bring the album to a gentle close. 

Janáček String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2, Sonnets  New Zealand String Quartet (Naxos) Purchase here

 This CD review was first published in the NZ Listener 1 May 2021