String Quartet No. 1 (Janáček)

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Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1., "Kreutzer Sonata", was written in a very short space of time, during 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 Kreutzer Sonata. Janáček nonetheless considered setting the novel to music much earlier (in 1908 - 1909 he composed - now lost - Piano Trio in three movements, likewise inspired by the Kreutzer Sonata).

The première of the new work was given on 17th 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.

1 Structure and style
2 Recordings
3 Sources
4 External links

[edit] 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 conflist 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)

Thematic idea central to the whole work is very similar to the thema of the symphony Danube (1923 - 25). Typical for the composition is the principle of tectonic montage, it abandons the field of traditional harmony, homophony and polyphony and instead concentrate at the heterophonic aspects, sonic factors, modal thinking and specific Janáček’s modal inflections.