Czech Chamber Music Society • Concert for the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Jiří Novák
Programme
Niccolò Paganini
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in D major, Op. 6 (18')
Recorded by Jiří Novák with the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, conducted by Václav Smetáček, Supraphon 1955
Bedřich Smetana
String Quartet No. 1 in E minor “From My Life” (28')
— Intermission —
Excerpt from the documentary film "Smetanovci", directed by Jaromil Jireš, 1998 (15')
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Violin Concerto in D major, K 218 (26')
Performers
Hana Kotková violin
Wihan Quartet
Chamber Orchestra of the Pupils and Friends of Jiří Novák
Jitka Novotná host
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Performers
Hana Kotková violin
Wihan Quartet
Leoš Čepický violin
Jan Schulmeister violin
Jakub Čepický viola
Michal Kaňka cello
The Wihan Quartet, named after the renowned Czech cellist Hanuš Wihan, is one of the leading string quartets to emerge from the great Czech school of performance. This ensemble, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding in 2025, has earned an exceptional reputation for its interpretations of the Czech repertoire as well as many significant works of world classical, romantic, and modern music. As part of its ever-expanding international career, the quartet has performed at leading festivals in Europe and the Far East. It regularly performs in the US and has also undertaken a highly successful tour of Australia and New Zealand. It is a frequent guest in the United Kingdom (Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Southbank, and others), and its performances are often featured on Radio 3.
The Wihan Quartet is a laureate of many international competitions: the Prague Spring (1988), the International Chamber Music Competition in Trapani, Sicily (1990), and the Osaka Chamber Music Festival in 1996, resulting in new invitations to Japan each year. In 1991, the Wihan Quartet won first prize and the audience prize at the London International String Quartet Competition; it has been nominated three times for the Royal Philharmonic Society Award. The quartet’s discography—over 40 CDs—reflects its deep connection to Czech music, but also includes many classical, romantic, and modern works from the international repertoire. Its recording of Schoenberg’s Quartet No. 4, paired with Pfitzner’s Quartet No. 2, received the highest award from the French magazine Répertoire.
In the 2007/2008 season, the ensemble performed Ludwig van Beethoven’s complete string quartets at six concerts at the Convent of St. Agnes in Prague and subsequently in London, a program they had previously recorded for the Lotos label. These concerts were captured on another CD and DVD, this time for the British label Nimbus Alliance, for which the ensemble regularly records. Nimbus Alliance has also released, for example, a unique recording of Niccolò Paganini’s 24 Caprices, arranged for string quartet by American composer William Zinn, as well as the premiere recording of six quartets by contemporary composers titled Kol Nidrei: Elegy for Pamela from 2017. In recent years, two quartet CDs featuring works by Smetana, Dvořák, and Janáček have also been released in the UK; also worth mentioning are a Mozart recording with pianist Matyáš Novák and two piano quintets by Gabriel Fauré with Japanese pianist Mami Shikimori from 2020.
During their stays in the UK, they also regularly perform at concerts organized by the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust, which focuses on promoting chamber music among young people. The quartet also organizes masterclasses, including at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, and has participated in a number of summer music schools, such as the Dartington International Summer School and Pro Corda. In the summer of 2026, they will perform at British music festivals including the Lake District Summer Music and the Ripon International Festival.
Komorní orchestr žáků a přátel Jiřího Nováka
Jitka Novotná
Compositions
Bedřich Smetana
String Quartet No. 1 in E minor “From My Life”
String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, subtitled “From My Life”, was composed by Bedřich Smetana at the end of 1876, two years after he lost his hearing. As the subtitle of the work suggests, it has autobiographical features and is considered to be the composer’s confession of a lifetime and artistic statement. Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15 from 1855, composed after the death of his first-born daughter Bedřiška, also had an intimate subtext. Smetana was inherently a programmatic composer and dramatist, and these qualities gave shape to his first string quartet. It was to be premiered on 19 February 1877 by the Bennewitz Quartet. However, its members found the piece too symphonic and refused to perform it. The public premiere took place as late as 29 March 1879 at a concert of the Art Society, performed by Ferdinand Lachner, Jan Pelikán, Josef Kerhan and Alois Neruda. Before that, however, the composer’s friend Josef Srb-Debrnov, who organized musical afternoons in his apartment, presented Smetana’s quartet to a closer circle of listeners in mid-April 1878. Smetana wrote to Srb on that occasion: “As regards my Quartet, I gladly leave others to judge its style, and I shall not be in the least angry if this style does not find favor or is considered contrary to what was hitherto regarded as quartet style. I did not intend to write a quartet according to recipe or custom in the usual forms. As a young beginner I worked sufficiently hard to acquire thorough knowledge and mastery of musical theory. [...] For me the form of every composition is dictated by the subject itself.” The established forms served Smetana as a starting point and he transformed their laws to suit his needs.
The work is indisputably autobiographical, and the composer himself made it known. The first movement expresses his youthful leanings toward art, a romantic atmosphere and “the inexpressible yearning for something I could neither express nor define, and also a kind of warning of my future misfortune.” The polka of the second movement is a reminiscence of the joyful days of Smetana’s youth; its middle section, he writes, is “the one which, in the opinion of the gentlemen who play this quartet, is unperformable. The purity of the chords is said to be impossible to achieve; I remind myself that I am painting in the tones of this movement my recollections of the aristocratic circles in which I lived for many years.” The third movement “brings to mind the happiness of my first love for the girl who later on became my faithful wife,” i.e., for Kateřina Kolářová. In the final movement, Smetana describes “discovery of how to make use of the elements of national music, joy at the success of this course up to the time it was interrupted by the catastrophe of the onset of my deafness,” as announced by a piercing high E fatefully ringing in his ears. “Roughly this is the aim of this composition, an almost private one, and therefore purposely written for four instruments which talk to each other in an intimate circle of friends of what has so momentously affected me.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Violin Concerto in D major, K 218