String Quartet No. 1 (Janáček)

Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1., "Kreutzer Sonata", was written in a very short space of time, between 13 and 28 October 1923, at a time of great creative concentration. The work was revised by the composer in the autograph from 30 October to 7 November 1923. Composition was inspired by Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata. Janáček nonetheless considered setting the novel to music much earlier (in 1908 - 1909 he composed a Piano Trio in three movements, now lost, likewise inspired by the The Kreutzer Sonata).

Surviving fragments of the Trio suggest that it was quite similar to the surviving quartet, and reconstructions as a piano trio have been performed.

The première of the new work was given on 17 October 1924 by the Czech Quartet at a concert of the Spolek pro moderní hudbu (Contemporary Music Society) at the Mozarteum in Prague.

The composition was published as a pocket score in April 1925 by Hudební matice.

Structure and style

"I was imagining a poor woman, tormented and run down, just like the one the Russian writer Tolstoy describes in his Kreutzer Sonata", Janáček confided in one of his letters to his young friend Kamila Stösslová. In the music of the quartet is depicted psychological drama containing moments of conflict as well as emotional outbursts, passionate work rush towards catharsis and to final climax.

The composition consists of four parts:

• 1. Adagio - Con moto
• 2. Con moto
• 3. Con moto -Vivo - Andante
• 4. Con moto - Adagio

The thematic idea central to the whole work is very similar to the theme of the composer's Danube symphony (1923 - 25). Using a principle of thematic montage, the quartet almost abandons the fields of traditional harmony, homophony and counterpoint and instead makes free with the varied sonic factors typical of Janáček, including his 'trademark' modal inflections .

Recordings

• Alban Berg Quartet
• Janáček Quartet (Supraphon Archiv SU 3460-2)
• Juilliard String Quartet (Sony SK66840)
• Martinů Quartet (ArcoDiva UP 0036-2131)
• Melos Quartet (Harmonia Mundi HMG 501380)
• Panocha Quartet (Supraphon SU 3906-2)
• Pavel Haas Quartet (Supraphon SU 3922-2)
• Pražák Quartet (Praga PRD 250108) (1997)
• Smetana Quartet
• Škampa Quartet (Supraphon SU 3486-2131)
• Vlach Quartet Prague (Naxos 8.553895)
• Britten Quartet (EMI Classic B00004UZ9L 1993)
• Hagen Quartet

Sources

Janáček, Leoš: String Quartet No. 1. Urtext. Praha: Editio Bärenreiter, 2000. TP 520

External links

• http://www.fuguemasters.com/janacek.html