After the Škampa Quartet’s debut performance at Wigmore Hall, William Lyne, the Hall’s then Director, commented: "After their first concert in 1993 one sensed their tremendous rapport with the audience". This concert led to the Škampa Quartet becoming the first-ever quartet-in-residence at Wigmore Hall later that year, a successful collaboration that spanned five years. In this recital, recorded live in 2006, the sense of style for which the Škampa Quartet is so renowned is especially prominent in the Smetana quartet. In the final work in this concert - the eighth quartet of Shostakovich - the Škampa Quartet’s intensity and immediacy of interpretations are particularly apparent.
“Blistering might be the overall description of how the Škampas played. Every nuance, every colour – from warm, soothing tone to terrifying rasping sul ponticello, with the widest of dynamic range, was delivered with white-hot energy.”
