Tue, 20. 10. 2026, 19:00 hrs.

K1 Janáček Quartet | String harmony

Venue: Zlín Congress Centre  |  Organizer: Filharmonie Bohuslava Martinů, o.p.s.  | 

The Janáček Quartet's origins date back to 1947 when the ensemble was founded by students of the Brno Conservatory, and it was the quartet's outstanding performances of Leoš Janáček's works that won it the right to bear the composer's name. In the Quartet's almost eight decades it has performed at major international festivals and in leading concert halls, and has made a number of recordings for established record labels. The group's enduring continuity has naturally resulted in gradual changes in its line-up, but its performing repertoire and characteristic expressiveness remain a lasting feature of its artistic profile.

In its current line-up of Miloš Vacek, Richard Kružík, Jan Řezníček and Lukáš Polák, the quartet's programme tonight focuses on the Czech repertoire, with string quartets by Ervín Schulhoff, Smetana and Dvořák.
Ervín Schulhoff's first string quartet, written in 1924 when he was 30, is a relatively intimate work approximately sixteen minutes long, with a marked stylistic diversity reflecting the experimental trends of the interwar period as well as the composer's roots in the Czech musical setting.

Smetana's String Quartet No. 2 in D minor was written towards the end of his life during a period of complete hearing loss and advancing illness. The work thus bears signs of inner tension and restlessness, not in the form of a programmatic narrative, but through its intensely expressive musical language. Its compositional approach transcends the conventions of its day, and in some respects even anticipates the expressive style of 20th-century music.

Dvořák wrote his F major String Quartet during his summer stay in the American town of Spillville where he spent his first vacation while teaching at the New York Conservatory. The designation "American" relates not only to the work's place of origin, but also to the presence of certain stylistic elements inspired by African-American and Native American music. Thanks to its undeniable qualities, this quartet is one of Dvořák's most frequently performed chamber works and indeed one his most frequently performed works overall.