Emil František Burian: String Quartet No. 4
Béla Bartók: String Quartet No. 2, Sz. 67, BB 75
Leoš Janáček: String Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters”, JW VII/13
Emil František Burian (1904–1959) ranks among the most fascinating and versatile figures of the Czech interwar avant-garde. He excelled not only as a prolific composer, actor, singer, and writer, but above all as a theatre and film director who promoted innovative artistic approaches. Janáček’s music influenced not only Burian’s music-dramatic works but also his chamber compositions. Burian’s String Quartet No. 4 was composed in 1947, during a period when the composer was recovering from the consequences of imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps. The quartet is a powerful and affecting personal confession, alternating passages of deep introspection and melancholy with moments that are openly ironic and raw.
In the life and work of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881–1945), as in the case of Leoš Janáček, the discovery of folk music played a crucial role. Bartók composed his String Quartet No. 2 in A minor between 1915 and 1917, at a time when his musical style was shifting from symbolism, Straussian tone painting, and impressionistic moods toward expressionist rawness, conciseness, and concentrated, intense—indeed “barbaric”—expression, seasoned with elements of Hungarian and Romanian folk music.
Leoš Janáček’s (1854–1928) String Quartet for Two Violins, Viola and Cello “Intimate Letters” was written in the last year of the composer’s life. The work represents a musical counterpart to Janáček’s extensive correspondence with his muse, Kamila Stösslová. Janáček heard the quartet performed in rehearsals by the Moravian Quartet in May 1928, but he did not live to hear its premiere: he died unexpectedly on August 12, 1928. The first performance, intended for experts and critics, was given by the Moravian Quartet on September 7, 1928, in the Hlahol Hall of the Besední dům in Brno. The public premiere followed shortly thereafter on September 11, 1928, at the Brno Exhibition Centre as part of the Exhibition of Contemporary Culture in Czechoslovakia.
Text: Ondřej Pivoda
