Leos Janacek – Janácek: The Two String Quartets Martinu Quartet 2015 CD

The chamber music output of Jancek is relatively small but often programmatic. As acknowledged by the composer, the two string quartets are a vehicle for his deepest feelings. The mounting tension of String Quartet No. 1, which culminates in a less anguished last movement, emphasises the heightened feelings of love, pion, and remorse with which he was concerned at the time of its writing. As he summed it up, the work depicts the miserable woman, suffering, beaten, beaten to death from Tolstoys Kreutzer Sonata. Titled Intimate Letters, the Second Quartetthe last work Jancek completedfulfils an autobiographical function, being a no less ardent and personal composition. The Martin Quartet (Czech: Kvarteto Martin) is a Czech string quartet ensemble founded in 1976, originally under the name Havlk Quartet by students of Professor Viktor Mouka at the Prague Conservatory. In 1985, with the approval of the Bohuslav Martin Foundation, the quartet umed its present name Martin Quartet, pledging to promote the chamber music of Czech composer Bohuslav Martin. The quartet specialises in the works of Czech composers such as Smetana, Dvok and Janek, and especially the works of Bohuslav Martin. They perform regularly at the Prague Spring Festival as well as concerts in many European Countries, the United States, Canada and Japan.