Photo: Guy Vivien

THE TALICH QUARTET

Jan Talich - violin Joseph Gagliano (1780)
Petr Macecek - violin Francesco Ruggieri (1694)
Vladimir Bukac - viola Lorenzo Guadagnini (1740)
Petr Prause - cello Januarius Gagliano (1750)

The Talich Quartet, which has been considered for many years to be one of the world´s finest string quartets, represents Czech musical art over the whole Europe, the USA and Japan.

The quartet was founded by Jan Talich sr. during his studies at the Prague Conservatoire, himself being the nephew of the renown chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Vaclav Talich, whom the quartet was named after. From the start in 1964 (Messiereur, Kvapil, Talich, Rattay) until the beginning of the ninetieth they quickly gained a significant position among the leading world quartets. On CD they have recorded, among others the complete works of W.A. Mozart and L. van Beethoven and have received many international prizes, including the “Diapasson d´Or”, “Grand Prix du Disque”, “Diapasson du siecle”, “Gold Disque from Supraphon”, etc.

In the half of the 1990´s a gradual change of all quartet members occurred, resulting in the present more youthful sitting of Mr. Talich, Macecek, Bukac and Prause who, continuing in the tradition of their predecessors, are involved in the wide spectrum of concerts and recording activities.

The Talich Quartet performs to great acclaim in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Italy...Japan North and South America. They are regularly invited to prestigious chamber music festivals and venues such as Carnegie Fall, Paris Champs-Elysées, Salle Gaveau, Lyon, London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Valencia, Palau de la Musica, the Pablo Casals in Prades, the Prague Spring Music Festival, Europalia Festival, Printemps des Arts in Monte Carlo, Tibor Varga in Sion, Prague Spring Festival, International String Quartet festival in Ottawa and others.

The Talich Quartet was approached by the Steven Spielberg foundation to work on recording works by classical composers for the film documentary about the holocaust called Hell on the Earth by the director V. Jasny.
The Quartet are at present working on recording the complete string quartets and other chamber works by F. Mendelssohn, followed by a similar project of F. Schubert compositions, all for the French label Calliope, with whom the Quartet have co-operated since their foundation.
Their latest recording for the company is Janacek quartets – publication in October 2005.
The Talich Quartet is sponsored by SKODA.

Web site: www.talichquartet.com