String Quartet No. 1 (Smetana)

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Bedřich Smetana's String Quartet No. 1, written in 1876, is a four-movement Romantic work in E minor. It has four movements:

• Allegro vivo appassionato
• Allegro moderato à la Polka
• Largo sostenuto
• Vivace

It was given a private premiere in 1878 in Prague with Antonín Dvořák as violist, and its public premiere in 1879, played by Ferdinand Lachner, Jan Pelikan, Josef Krehan and Alois Neruda.

It is semi-autobiographical and composed of sketches of parts of Smetana's life, as is suggested by its subtitle Z mého života ("From My Life"). Its notable features include a prominent viola solo in the very beginning of the first movement, and a high, sustained harmonic E on the first violin in the last movement, which represents the ringing presage of his deafness in Smetana's ears (though the actual ringing was a chord of A).

[edit] References

• Notes by Joseph Way
• Notes to a performance by the La Jolla Music Society