left-right Marek Zwiebel, Veronika Jarůšková, Luosha Fang and Peter Jarůšek.
QUARTET PHOTO MARCO BORGGREVE. PAVEL NIKL PHOTO LUKÁŠ KADEŘÁBEK
You get to meet a lot of string quartets in this job, and it goes without saying that each has its own unique dynamic; but generally, they fall into one of two categories: earnest and businesslike or chatty and excitable. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered a group more conclusively in the latter camp than the Pavel Haas Quartet. Listening again to the recording of our interview, some words are difficult to make out as the players finish each other’s sentences, interject with new ideas and, sometimes, begin entirely new conversations among themselves. After more than an hour of this, I put it to the group that they are almost startlingly friendly, and with none of the awkwardness that often accompanies this kind of interaction (I’m at home in the UK, they’re backstage in Brussels, all gathered round a single iPad). ‘I think what you’re trying to say is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously,’ replies violist Luosha Fang, who became the group’s newest member when she joined them in April 2021. ‘But we can still be serious, of course,’ counters founding first violinist Veronika Jarůšková. ‘When we’re on stage we would die for our music.’