String Quartet No. 1 (Smetana)

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String Quartet No. 1 ("From My Life", Czech: "Z mého života") in E minor, written in 1876, is a four-movement chamber composition by Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. It is an autobiographical work with nationalistic elements and was published in 1880 by František Augustin Urbánek in Prague. It was given a private premiere in 1878 in Prague, with Antonín Dvořák as violist, and its public premiere took place on 29 March 1879, performed by Ferdinand Lachner, Jan Pelikán, Josef Krehan and Alois Neruda.^[1] Smetana was a complex figure in his time, straddling his Austro-Hungarian upbringing coupled with his ethnic Czech background. His first quartet encompasses the politics and culture that resulted from that upbringing.