10th June 1960

The Smetana Quartet in the Domovina studio

In June 1960, the celebrated Smetana Quartet, at the height of its powers, made a recording in the Domovina studio in Prague. Its members, Jiří Novák, Lubomír Kostecký, Antonín Kohout and Milan Škampa, chose to feature on their LP music by Franz Schubert. Indisputably the finest representative of the “Czech quartet school”, the ensemble gained renown all over the world owing to their musical faculties, artistic mastery, as well as novel performance elements (playing by heart, which came as a shock to the contemporary audience; some 40 pieces since 1949!). The Smetana Quartet, formed in 1945 and dissolved in 1989, gave more than 4,000 concerts.

Album detail
Catalogue number: SU 3738-2