Author: mdoubek
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Wihan Quartet ‘exceptional’ in Oxford
The Wihan Quartet‘s recent recital at Oxford’s Holywell Music Room was received with great enthusiasm. Oxford Chamber Music Society Chair John Dunston contacted Tashmina Artists to express his delight and reflect on their performance: “We were delighted to welcome the Wihan Quartet back to Oxford and the Holywell Music Room … You will have sensed, as…
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Wihan Quartet to give celebratory concert at Wigmore Hall
The Wihan Quartet look forward to performing at Wigmore Hall in a joint celebration of their 40th anniversary and the 95th birthday of Simon Majaro, author, professor, instrument-maker, philanthropist, and long-time friend of the quartet. One seldom has an opportunity of celebrating two interrelated events. The Wihan Quartet are celebrating over 30 years since they gloriously won their way…
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Wihan Quartet to perform in the UK this spring
As part of their busy international schedule, the Wihan Quartet will give a series of concerts around the UK next month. The Wihan Quartet, described by International Record Review as “one of the best quartets in the world today”, will perform three concerts in the UK in March, affording listeners an opportunity to hear some of the…
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Wihan Quartet featured on BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week
The Wihan Quartet can be heard on BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week as part of a series on Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. This episode of BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week features excerpts from the Wihan Quartet’s recording of Smetana’s String Quartet no. 1 in E minor, From my life. Host Donald Macleod presents their recording…
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Their playing is both thoughtful and impassioned
The Wihan Quartet have held their position of eminence among the most distinguished Czech chamber groups for nearly 40 years. This remarkable consistency, in part a result of minimal personnel changes, is also down to the Wihan’s ability to revitalise their interpretative approach. “… these performances of Dvořák and Smetana’s most famous quartets certainly offer…
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Musical drama pushed to the limits
Bohemian Rhapsody Freddie Mercury was teamed up with Montserrat Caballe, and it worked! Why? Because both of those performers, one from the ‘pop’ genre and the other ‘high’ opera, hit the senses directly. A visceral sensation. The Wihan had flown from Bohemia into England for their concert at the Courtenay Centre. Very used to travelling…
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Virtuoso technical skills and exuberant yet disciplined expression
…The Wihan Quartet opened with the String Quartet no. 2, composed in 1925, when Martinů was a young man living in Paris and absorbing new musical influences like jazz… “The opening piece was, in a word, brilliant. In a country where string quartets abound, this performance offered a reminder why the Wihan Quartet is considered among…
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Conjured superbly
Mozart himself made these chamber adaptations of the first three piano concertos he composed soon after settling in Vienna in 1781 as a freelance composer-pianist. In each of them, the combination of an orchestral ‘feel’ with string-quartet reality requires a kind of circle-squaring from its performers that can be difficult to bring off – and is specially memorable…
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A sophisticated and subtle performance
…The Wihan Quartet seemed to enjoy the freedom of Wolf’s episodic structure, capturing the Serenade’s light-hearted, often ironic, spirit. The opening was feathery and refined – lots of air between bow and string – yet there was an underlying ebullience and confidence, conveyed by the bright clarity of leader Leoš Čepický’s perky E string and lifted…