Suk: Complete Works For String Quartet; Piano Quintet / Minguet Quartett

“In 1912, when my second quartet was performed in Berlin, a tumult arose in the audience that was not far from a tussle. On the one side, shouts of amazement; on the other side, expressions of displeasure and boos. Even Schönberg, who attaches special value to flops, was envious of me because of this flop.” “…our generation too has fought for its ideals and had to wait long and often still is waiting to receive honest and full recognition of its efforts to produce a new musical language, which very often again became the basis for the new aspirations of the younger generation.” These words were not written by an anarchistic innovator but by the euphonious late romanticist Josef Suk. His second string quartet, however, is surely the most ambitious and ‘most modern’ work he penned. In the field of chamber music it also ranks as his most important. For cpo the Minguet Quartet has recorded Suk’s complete œuvre for string quartet – with Matthias Kirschnereit joining them for the early piano quintet.