Antonín Dvorák Complete String Quartets. Final volume.

This album brings Naxos’ series of Dvořák’s fourteen string quartets to its conclusion. Performed by the renowned Fine Arts Quartet, the finale to the series couldn’t be in better hands. The mixed programme opens with Dvořák’s five Bagatelles, scored unusually for string quartet and harmonium; they’re infrequently heard in concert, but contain some of the composer’s most attractive melodies. That immediate appeal is set against Dvořák’s more challenging Second String Quartet. Written in a deeply personal and, for its time, relatively avant-garde style, Dvořák considered it to be a failed experiment. He destroyed the manuscript score but, happily, the individual parts were discovered many years after his death.


Antonín DVOŘÁK (1841–1904)
String Quartet No. 2 1
Bagatelles 2 • Rondo in G minor 3

Fine Arts Quartet –
Ralph Evans 1, 2, Efim Boico 1, 2, Violins • Gil Sharon, Viola 1
Niklas Schmidt, Cello
Ryoko Morooka, Harmonium 2 • Stepan Simonian, Piano 3

Antonín Dvořák is revered as one of the greatest composers of late 19th-century Romanticism. He is celebrated for the kind of poignant melodies redolent of Czech folk music found in the utterly charming Bagatelles and Rondo – the haunting tunes and harmonic twists of which represent the distinctive style that brought him international fame. Less known is that during the years 1868–70 Dvořák composed in a style so wild for the time that it foreshadowed the modernistic innovations of Schoenberg and his contemporaries. Dvořák’s Second Quartet reveals fascinating examples of early experimentation before his transition into the harmonious Slavic style for which he is so beloved.

Listen to an extract from String Quartet No. 2:
III. Allegro con brio
About the Artists

The Fine Arts Quartet ranks among the most distinguished ensembles in chamber music today. With an illustrious history of performing success and an extensive legacy of over 200 recorded works, it is one of the elite few to have recorded and toured internationally for over three-quarters of a century. Many of the Quartet’s recent releases have been selected for inclusion on GRAMMY Awards entry lists in the categories Best Classical Album and/or Best Chamber Music Performance, and have received multiple awards and distinctions.

From left to right: Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, Gil Sharon, Niklas Schmidt

Russian-born German pianist Stepan Simonian has performed as a guest artist at some of the most prestigious festivals and concert venues throughout Europe, including Bachfest Leipzig; international piano festivals La Roque d’Anthéron and Piano aux Jacobins in France; the Martha Argerich Festival in Germany; Mosel Music Festival; the ProArte concert series in Hamburg; Pro Musica Hannover; Alte Oper Frankfurt; Konzerthaus Berlin and the Prinzregententheater in Munich.

Born in Fukuoka, Japan, Ryoko Morooka subsequently moved to Germany to study organ and church music at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover. She regularly appears as a concert organist in Europe and Japan and, since 1995, has been a member of the Baroque Brass of London, with whom she has undertaken several tours. She is also much in demand as a harmonium specialist.

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‘[The] Fine Arts Quartet does an excellent job allowing the music to unfold on its own terms, offering sensitive, well-balanced, and timbrally vibrant playing that sustains the piece over its entire length … I can recommend this release without hesitation.’
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‘A gripping performance of Saint-Saëns’s Piano Quartet, sparkling account of the early Piano Quintet and sublime Barcarolle make a superlative disc from the Fine Arts Quartet and Cristina Ortiz.’
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‘Cristina Ortiz and the Fine Arts Quartet couple two major chamber works and give very fine accounts of both masterpieces. They have ardour and finesse in equal measure.’
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‘The outstanding aspect of these performances is the quality of sound, rich and beautifully blended. With a heartfelt, expressive quality, they’re able to bring out fully the lyrical side of Schumann’s invention.’
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