STREICHQUARTETT DER STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN & UDO SAMEL

In the summer of 1917, Leoš Janáček met Kamila Stösslová, a woman almost 40 years his junior. His passionate love for her remained platonic, but it provided the impetus for the creation of a number of works, most notably the Second String Quartet of 1928. The Berlin Staatskapelle String Quartet performs this musical declaration of love together with the composer’s First Quartet, written five years earlier and inspired by Tolstoi’s The Kreutzer Sonata. Actor Udo Samel reads from the novella as well as Stösslová and Janáček’s numerous “intimate letters.”