This album was recorded in February 2006 at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
Historical Context
During the 19th-century Czech National Revival, symphonic poems and opera dominated musical proceedings, serving as agents in the nation's search for its soul.
Composer Biography
Bedřich Smetana, a prominent Czech composer, lost all hearing in both ears by October 1874, but his musical imagination remained undimmed.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Smetana described his String Quartet No. 1, 'From My Life', as "purposely written for four instruments which, as in a small circle of friends, talk among themselves about what has oppressed me so significantly."
Instruments
The Tokyo String Quartet performs on 'the Paganini Quartet', a group of renowned Stradivarius instruments named for the legendary virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, who acquired and played them during the 19th century.
Performer Biography
The Tokyo String Quartet has served on the faculty at the Yale School of Music since 1976 and is quartet-in-residence at New York's 92nd Street Y.
Instruments
The 'Paganini Quartet' Stradivarius instruments have been on loan to the Tokyo String Quartet from the Nippon Music Foundation since 1995, after being purchased from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
