With eight string quartets, Martinu is one the major representatives of the genre in twentieth-century music. The present critical edition differs considerably from all the previous practical editions, including the recent Urtext ones, as it was preceded by thorough heuristic research, which helped uncover numerous new musical and non-musical sources.

Knowledge of this complete source material enabled the creation of editions of the utmost precision and also elucidated the aesthetic and formal foundations of the works. In the light of these findings, Martinu’s string quartets can be seen as a systematically developed series of compositions that share an ingenuously structured and innovative connection of form and musical matter.