Janacek String Quartet No. 1 score

In October 1923, the Czech Quartet invited Leos Janácek to compose something for them. This provided the stimulus for his first string quartet. The work was inspired by Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata (which he had written influenced by Beethovens famous violin sonata).

Janácek had also read Tolstoy's story earlier in the original Russian and already at that time it had inspired him to compose a piano trio in 1907 which was later lost. Janácek's string quartet is a masterwork by the almost 70-year-old composer. The work sparked a creative impulse which continued with the composition of the second string quartet Intimate Letters in the last years of the composers life.