Talich Quartet

Jan Talich - violin Antonio Stradivari (1729)
Petr Macecek - violin Francesco Rugger (1694)
Vladimir Bukac - viola Lorenzo Guadanini (1740)
Petr Prause - cello Giovanni Grancino (1710)

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 Americas and Far East.

The quartet was founded in 1964 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 the quartet (P.Messiereur,J.Kvapil,J.Talich, E.Rattay) 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 second half of the 1990´s a gradual change of all quartet members occurred, resulting in the present more youthful sitting of J.Talich, P.Macecek, V. Bukac and P.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 Europe, Japan North and South America. They are regularly invited to prestigious chamber music festivals and venues such as Carnegie hall, Paris Champs-Ellysses, Salle Gaveau, Lyon, London's Wigmore hall, the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades, 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 St. Spielberg foundation to work on recording works by classical composers for the film documentary about the holocaust called Hell on the Earth.

Despite being famous for their interpretation of Czech music, they have a very wide - ranging repertoire, the spectrum including all traditional classical composers, right through to Berg, Schoenberg, Bartok and Schostakovich from the 20th century.