Bedřich Smetana: String Quartet No. 1 "From my Life" - Jean Sibelius: String Quartet "Voces Intimae"
6/1/2009, 10 Tracks, 1:01:19
Featuring
Pavel Hůla
Miloš Černý
Zbyněk Paďourek
Václav Bernášek
Kocian Quartet
Bedřich Smetana
Jean Sibelius
Did you know?
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Composition History
Jean Sibelius's String Quartet 'Voces intimae' was completed in Berlin in April 1909, with some sketches made in London and Paris.
Compositional Technique
In Smetana's String Quartet No.1, the strident, fatal whistling that marked the beginning of his deafness in 1874 is represented by a high E note in the finale.
Composition History
Smetana's String Quartet No.1, 'From My Life', was intended to retrace the unfolding of his life in music, including his youthful love of art, his first love, and the onset of his deafness.
Performer Biography
The Kocian Quartet, founded in 1972, is named after the violin virtuoso and teacher Jaroslav Kocian (1883-1950), who was a pupil of the famous violin teacher Otakar Sevčík.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Smetana intentionally wrote his String Quartet No.1 for a limited number of instruments, the string quartet, because it possessed a private nature and allowed for intimate conversation among friends.
Composer Biography
Bedřich Smetana's chamber music, including his two String Quartets, was written when he was suffering from increasingly severe deafness.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The title 'Voces intimae' (intimate voices) for Sibelius's String Quartet Op.56 refers to three mysterious pianissimo chords in the slow middle movement, which seem to illustrate his anxieties about a throat tumor he suffered in 1908.
