String Quartet No.4 by Bohuslav Martinu [1890-1959) originated in 1937 in Paris where it was also premiered in a private performance one year later.  Due to the composer's emigration to the U.S.A. and the post-war political development in Czechoslovakia, the piece remained for many years in oblivion in the archive of the Puc family to whom Martinu dedicated it. It was re-discovered as late as in 1956 by Martinu's friend and a keen promoter of his work Milos Safranek. Four years later the quartet was performed in public by the Novak Quartet in a concert in Germany.<br>
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The main sources for the presented practical edition of this neo-classicistic composition, in which Martinu typically combined French moderateness with Czech melodiousness, were the autograph and the 1963 edition by SHV, thoroughly freed of all the unwanted previous editorial revisions.<br>