String Quartet No. 1 (Smetana)
Encyclopedia
E minor
E minor is a minor scale based on the note E. The E natural minor scale consists of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. The E harmonic minor scale contains the natural 7, D, rather than the flatted 7, D – to align with the major dominant chord, B7 .Its key signature has one sharp, F .Its...
, written in 1876
1876 in music
- Events :* February 24 - Incidental music composed by Edvard Grieg for Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt premieres.* August 16 - Richard Wagner's Siegfried debuts in Bayreuth- Published popular music :* "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen" by Thomas Payne Westendorf...
, is a four-movement Romantic
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
chamber composition by the Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Bedřich Smetana
Bedrich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
.
Background
After the deaf Smetana moved in 1876 from PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
to Jabkenice
Jabkenice
Jabkenice is a village in Central Bohemian Region, Czech Republic. It is located at around . Composer Bedřich Smetana lived here from 1875 until his death....
, he hoped, that his handicap wouldn't be permanent. In autumn of that year he began to compose a new, important work. It was to be the composer's intimate confession, a work depicting in notes the course of his life "... using four instruments speaking among themselves in something like a friendly circle".
The composition was finished on 29 December 1876, ideological conception and the features of individual movements Smetana formulated in a letter to his friend Josef Srba.
It was given a private premiere in 1878 in Prague with Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
as violist, and its public premiere took place on 29 March 1879, played by Ferdinand Lachner, Jan Pelikán, Josef Krehan and Alois Neruda.
It is semi-autobiographical and composed of sketches of parts of Smetana's life, as is suggested by its subtitle Z mého života ("From My Life"). Its notable features include a prominent viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
solo in the very beginning of the first movement, and a high, sustained harmonic
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...
E on the first violin in the last movement, which represents the ringing presage of his deafness in Smetana's ears (though the actual ringing was a chord of A).
The work was published in 1880 by Fr. Urbánek in Prague.
Structure
The cycle consists of four movementsMovement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
:
- Allegro vivo appassionato
- Allegro moderato à la Polka
- Largo sostenuto
- Vivace
The first movement is the expression of composer's inclination to the romantic ideals in life and in his music. In the second movement the polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
style recalls the memories of his youth, happy and convivial. The third movement is of great emotional depth, it's an apotheosis to love in overcoming the adversity of fate and finding harmony in life. In the last movement, the composer describes the journey to understanding the real essence of national art, interrupted by disaster - the beginning of the deafness. The end is almost resigned, with only a small ray of hope for a better future.