‘Blithe ignorance of the future cataclysm’ is the subtitle originally chosen by Shostakovich for the first movement of his ‘war quartet’, String Quartet no. 3, which he considered one of his finest works.

Contrairement à son titre, le sextuor Souvenir de Florence de Tchaikovski, composé en 1890, doit davantage à la tradition russe qu’à l’école italienne. Très contrasté, incroyablement exigeant pour les interprètes et d’une grande intensité, il constitue l’une des pierres angulaires du répertoire. Moins d’une dizaine d’années plus tard, Schönberg compose un autre monument du sextuor à cordes, dont la vigueur n’a probablement rien à envier à celui de Tchaikovski : La Nuit transfigurée, inspirée du poème de Robert Dehmel, pousse l’expression romantique à son paroxysme dans un tableau musical noir et fiévreux.Héritier des grands interprètes russes, le Oistrakh Quartet est chez lui dans ces deux chefs-d'œuvre, qu’il enregistre en compagnie de l’altiste Daniel Austrich et du violoncelliste Alexander Buzlov.

Michael Rabin managed to be one of the most talented and tragic violin virtuosi of his generation. Hailed as a child prodigy, his talent matured gracefully into an adult level, but he failed to follow in his emotional growth, resulting in a cutting short of his career. He never reached the age of 36, yet remains one of the most fondly remembered of virtuoso violinists for listeners and fellow musicians such as Pinchas Zukerman, with whom he shared a teacher. Rabin's father was a violinist in the New York Philharmonic, and his mother a Juilliard-trained pianist.

Michal Kanka Classical cellist, born 1960 in Prague.

The Guarneri Trio Prague, belongs to the most renowned piano trios in the world of classical music. Founded by Ivan Klanský, Čeněk Pavlík and Marek Jerie, the Trio drew with its artistically spectacluar performances the attention of the international press early in its carreer. The Trio has been playing since 1986 in in the same line-up.The ensemble performs regularly at many international music festivals including the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Prague Spring, and Folle Journée in Nantes, Bilbao and Tokyo. The trio plays also at prestigious concert venues around the world, in cities like London, Paris, Prague, Madrid, Geneva and Hamburg. It has toured successfully throughout Europe, South and North America, Australia, Japan, the Phillipines and China.

The first major French piano quintet, César Franck's Piano Quintet was completed in 1879 and premiered in January 1880. With an intensity and lyricism unheard of in the French chamber music repertoire at the time, it marked both the renewal of the latter, opening the way for Chausson, D'Indy and Fauré, and that of Franck's style. The Pražák Quartet and François Dumont come together to celebrate the composer's 200th birthday with this masterpiece.

While one might wish that cellist Michal Kanka had a more robust tone, one could not wish for a more sensitive tone. While one might wish that pianist Ivan Klansky had a more distinct touch, one could not wish for a more sympathetic accompanist. And while one might wish that their performances of both Brahms' cello sonatas, plus a transcription of his Sonatensatz in C minor, were more recklessly virtuosic, one could not wish for warmer, more lyrical, more soulful performances. It could be that Kanka and Klansky's don't have the chops for Brahms' vigorous writing, but it seems more likely that they're simply going with their hearts. Listen to their Sonatensatz: their central section flows like the milk of human kindness, but their outer sections are desultory, enervated, and weak. While their performances are so sincere that one cannot help but be moved by them, they are still so listless that one grows ever so slightly bored with them. Praga's super audio digital sound is cloudy and damp.