The Voxpopuli Quartet secures a privileged place on my list of the best releases of 2026 with this masterful program dedicated to three lesser-known composers of the 20th century. Represented are the Czech V\u00edt\u011bzslav Nov\u00e1k (1870-1949), the Austro-Czech Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942), and the Ukrainian Borys Liatochynsky (1894-1968). For each of them, a powerful masterpiece of compositional richness. Let’s take a quick tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nov\u00e1k’s String Quartet No. 2 dates from 1904 and was composed after a stay in the forests of the Wallachia region. The two movements (unusual structure) are densely constructed with rich, dark, and serious harmonies. The first movement is a long, opulent fugue like dark purple corduroy velvet. One quickly gets the impression of being enveloped by this generous texture. The second movement takes on the guise of folk music, deployed with dramatic energy. The theme of the fugue returns at the end. It is a work straddling the Late Romanticism and the beginning of Modernism that deserves to be heard much more often. An undeniable masterpiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Erwin Schulhoff is one of those Jewish composers whom the Nazis declared “degenerate” before sending them to die in the death camps. The Five Pieces for String Quartet WV68 are short character works based on as many folk dances (a waltz, a serenade, a “Czech dance,” a tango, and a tarantella). The rhythms and intonations particular to each have been filtered through the sieve of harmonic modernism but in a manner that recalls Stravinsky’s neoclassicism. It’s full of colours and stimulating textures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n