Sour Cream Quartet

The Smetana Quartet ( Czech Smetanovo kvarteto ) is a Czech string quartet that performed in 1945 - 1989 . It is named after the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana , whose famous quartet “In my life” opened on November 6, 1945 in the hall of the Prague Municipal Library the concert activity of the quartet.

In 1949, the Smetana Quartet went on its first tour (to Poland), in 1950 it made the first recording (it is quite natural that it was one of the Smetana quartets). Throughout the 1950s and 60s Quartet's popularity was constantly growing, and in 1967 all four members of the final (established in 1956 ) composition of the quartet became professors of the Prague Academy of Music. In this first period of his creative biography, the musicians of the Smetana Quartet worked with a rather narrow repertoire, which allowed them to play without notes, and this, in turn, gave the quartet concerts a special spirit of chamberness and intimacy. Since the early 1970s The repertoire had to be expanded, and music stands with notes to be returned, and then criticism regarded this as a certain loss - compensated, however, by the increased expressiveness of the performance. In the work of the Smetana Quartet, Czech music played a prominent place - classical (Smetana, Dvorak , Janacek , Martinu ) and more modern, as well as works by Mozart , Beethoven , Prokofiev , Shostakovich . The last concert of the quartet took place on August 28, 1989.