Bedrich Smetana

Smetana completed the String Quartet No. 1 in E minor on December 29, 1876, at a time when he began to realize that his encroaching deafness was unstoppable. The most important aspect of the piece is its autobiographical program, making it, almost certainly, the first chamber music work of its type. It would influence Janacek in his two programmatic quartets, Kreutzer Sonata and Intimate Letters.

In a letter to his good friend Joseph Srb-Debrnov, Smetana writes: "My intention was to paint a tone picture of my life." Later, he would describe the work as "more or less a private composition, and therefore deliberately written for four instruments conversing among themselves about the things that torture me, and no more." What tortured Smetana was recurring noise in his ears and the gradual reduction in his hearing. He entitled the work, "Z mého ?ivota" (From my life), and watched the first performance of the piece, on March 29, 1879, through opera glasses from the side of the stage.

In his letter to Srb-Debrnov, Smetana claims that, "I had no intention of writing any quartet to the customary formulas, on which I worked sufficiently as a student of music theory...." This is curious, as the movements of the E minor Quartet are cast in easily recognizable forms and Smetana maintains the traditional four-movement scheme of the string quartet.

Smetana goes on: "The first movement depicts my youthful leanings toward art, the Romantic atmosphere, the inexpressible yearning for something I could neither express nor define, and also a kind of warning of my future misfortune." The movement is in sonata form, the first theme, a passionate viola melody, representing "fate's summons to take part in life's combat." The secondary theme, in G major, depicts "affection for romance in music and love." This theme is transformed just before the beginning of the powerful development. In the recapitulation, Smetana skips the return of the first theme and the transition, beginning instead with the second theme and then pursuing a relatively free course.

The second movement, Quasi Polka, is a scherzo in a polka rhythm with fugal passages, depicting "the joyful days of youth when Smetana] composed dance tunes and was known everywhere as a passionate lover of dancing." Its atmosphere evokes the opening of the overture to The Bartered Bride.

Of the third movement, Largo sostenuto, Smetana remarks: ..." reminds me of the happiness of my first love, the girl who later became my faithful wife." The movement is organized as a set of variations on two melodies with interpolated episodes.

"The long, insistent note in the finale...is the fateful ringing in my ears of the high-pitched tones which, in 1874, announced the beginning of my deafness." Smetana represents this ringing with a sustained, high E natural in the coda, preceding reminiscences of the first two themes of the first movement. The first part of the sonata-form movement, however, is ebullient, expressing Smetana's joy at "treat national elements in music."