In October 1923 the Czech Quartet invited Leos Janacek  to “compose something for them”.<br>
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This provided the stimulus for his first string quartet. The work was inspired by Tolstoy’s “ Kreutzer Sonata” (which he had written influenced by Beethoven’s famous violin sonata).<br>
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Janacek 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.<br>
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Janacek’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 composer’s life.<br>