Janáček's String Quartet No 1, 'Kreutzer Sonata'

Erik Levi chooses his favourite recording of Leoš Janáček's String Quartet No 1 'Kreutzer Sonata'

Composed in only nine days in 1923, Janáček's compact, emotionally supercharged String Quartet No 1 takes its title from Leo Tolstoy’s 1889 novella where a wife and her violinist lover play Beethoven’s 'Kreutzer' Sonata together before the jealous husband murders his adulterous wife. Janáček's music roils with the conflicted passions of tormented love, desire and jealously of Tolstoy's story. But there was emotional turmoil in Janáček's life, too. Long-fed up with his wife, in 1915 Janáček had fallen deeply in love with Kamila Stösslová who, happily married and 40 years his junior, made sure that Janáček's love remained unrequited. And if that was unfortunate for Janáček, it was surely lucky for us as he poured his feelings for Stösslová into music which blazes with a truly exceptional emotional intensity.