I. Allegro ma non troppo

Martinu's source of inspiration for String Quartet No. 5 was Vítezslava Kaprálová, a talented composer 25 years his junior, who took private lessons from him in Paris and with whom he soon started an affair. In his informed and informative liner notes, Ales Brezina - director of the Bohuslav Martinu Institute in Prague- proposes that this may have been the reason why Martinu refrained from publishing the work until the very last year of his life - a fact all the more astonishing since there is no doubt that the quartet is one of the composer's most significant chamber works. Outstanding: MusicWeb, Fono Forum.