LDV101

15 TALICH QUARTET The Eight Waltzes for piano op.54 ( B101 in Professor Jarmil Burghauser’s catalogue), issued in two volumes by Simrock, enjoyed a publishing success comparable to the Slavonic Dances for piano four hands. Written between November 1879 and January 1880, they were commissioned by the National Casino in Prague for its thirtieth annual ball. Not finding them sufficiently ‘danceable’, Dvořák turned them into a set of piano pieces and composed the Prague Waltzes B99 for the Casino ball instead. Far from the gilded ballrooms conjured up by sumptuous Viennese waltzes, these are simple, spontaneous pieces ‘that breathe the fragrance of the countryside and the wine of rustic inns’. The success of the ebullient first and fourth waltzes prompted Dvořák to transcribe them almost immediately for string quartet (1880, B105) for inclusion in the programme of a musical evening at the Society of Artists (Umělecká Beseda). These intimate pieces devoid of affectation or gratuitous virtuosity possess a folk impulse that make them a pure reflection of the Czech spirit. Much more recently, in 2020, the Czech violinist Jiří Kabát, at one time violist of the Pavel Haas Quartet, transcribed in his turn the other six that had remained in the shadows. While each of them displays its own personality, the proud and impetuous no.3 in E major and the more nostalgic no.7 in D minor, which seems to quote Chopin’s Mazurka in E minor op.41 no.2, are particularly worthy of attention.