Martinu B. - String Quartet No. 4

Publication type: study score
Main scoring: chamber music for strings
Scoring / Genre: string quartet
Scoring detailed:
2 violins, viola, violoncello
Publication lang.: cz./ger./eng./fr.

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 composers 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 Martinus 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. 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.

String Quartet 4 Study score