W.A.Mozart - String Quartets K.458 'Hunting' & K.421 - Smetana Quartet

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W.A.Mozart - String Quartets K.458 'Hunting' & K.421 - Smetana Quartet

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The Smetana Quartet was a Czech string quartet that was in existence from 1945 to 1989.
Personnel
1st violin
Vaclav Neumann (1920-1995), from 1945 to 1947
Jiri Novak (born 1924), since 1947
2nd violin
Lubomir Kostecky (born 1922)
Viola
Jaroslav Rybensky, from 1945 to 1956
Milan Skampa (born 1928), since 1956
Cello
Antonin Kohout (born 1919)
Origins and activities
The Smetana Quartet arose from the Quartet of the Czech Conservatory, which was founded in 1943 (during the Nazi occupation) in Prague by Antonin Kohout, the cellist. With J. Rybensky and L. Kostecky as first and second violins, and Vaclav Neumann as violist, the group gave its first perfirmance as the Smetana Quartet in November 1945, in Prague. Neumann left to pursue conducting in 1947, at which point Rybensky went to the viola desk and Jiri Novak (who shared first violin desk with Josef Vlach, founder of the Vlach Quartet, under Vaclav Talich in the Czech Chamber Orchestra) came in as first violin. By 1949 the group had official connections with the Czech Philharmonic. The first foreign tour was in 1949, to Poland, and the first recording was of a quartet by Bedrich Smetana in 1950. Rybensky was obliged to retire through ill health in 1952, and was replaced by Milan Skampa. The performers were appinted Professors at the Academy of Musical Arts in 1967. Of their many recordings, those made at that time for German Electrola are considered particularly fine. For many years this group, which has been called the finest Czech quartet of its time, played the Czech repertoire from memory, giving these works a special intensity and intimacy. Antonin Kohout trained the Kocian Quartet (founded 1972) and the Martinu Quartet (1976),[6] though the latter's members had been pupils of Professor Viktor Moucka, cellist of the Vlach Quartet.

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