Prazák Quartet

In 1789, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart travelled to Berlin in the company of Prince Lichnovsky. The Berlin court acknowledged him by commissioning the 'Prussian' quartets - KV575, 589, and 590. The prominent role of the cello in KV575 was probably prompted by his wish to please his royal patron. The quartets were not published until shortly after Mozart's death. One can therefore only hope that the king of Prussia actually owned a copy of these marvellous quartets so that he could play them during his daily chamber music sessions. In his first 'Razumovsky' quartet, Ludwig van Beethoven demonstrated how he fully he was able to integrate the influences of Haydn and Mozart. Although he stayed neatly within the bounds of the prescribed classical forms, his treatment of the harmony and melody was so innovative that the musicians burst into laughter at the first performance, and the public actually got angry and protested. In the historical tradition, the string quartet is an abstract music form. However, the 'Kreutzer' sonata by Leos Janácek (1854-1928) is programme music par excellence. It was Janácek's protest against Tolstoy's reactionary views on marriage and the role of women, which he expressed in his eponymous novella, denouncing the love of an adulterous woman and justifying her murder by her jealous husband.