The three string quartets in this programme are the last quartets that each of the three composers started.

Mozart's quartet in F Major K.590 was to have been the third of six quartets which he intended to dedicate to King Frederick William II of Prussia, who played the cello.   Mozart gave rather more prominence to the cello part than he normally did, no doubt in order to please the king.

Despite being written in 1947, Martinu's final quartet is more classical in style than his earlier quartets.   Some say that a debt to Haydn is evident in this quartet, but the central Andante in particular is most definitely of the twentieth century rather than the eighteenth.

Dvorak commenced composing a string quartet in A flat (his opus 105) whilst he was in America.   However, after returning home to Bohemia, Dvorak was filled with joy, and set his A flat quartet to one side; his quartet in G was a quartet he felt he just had to write.   It flowed from his pen in less than a month and is suffused with the excitement he felt at being home.

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The Martinu Quartet was founded in 1976 at the Prague Conservatory in the class of Prof. Viktor Moucka, a member of the Vlach Quartet. During the study at AMU (Academy of Music) under the leadership of Prof. Antonin Kohout, a member of the Smetana Quartet, they started performing under the name of Havlák Quartet and received many awards.   Among them was the special prize of 1990 Czech Chamber Music Society as well the prize of Bohuslav Martinu with special emphasis of Martinu's chamber music.   At the same time they gained a valuable experience from active workshops with renowned quartet ensembles (Tel Aviv Quartet, Amadeus Quartet, Guarneri Quartet, Julliard Quartet and others ).   They participated in eight international competitions with the result of eight awards with seven laureate titles, the most notable being in Portsmouth (Great Britain), ARD (Munich), Evian (France) and Prague Spring. In 1985 the ensemble, with the approval of the Bohuslav Martinu Society, took the name of Martinu Quartet, while pledging to promote Martinu's chamber music.

They have appeared all over Europe and have made regular tours of the USA, Canada, Spain, Japan and England. They have been heard at festivals, including Brighton, Warwick, Leamington, Bath, the City of London Festival, the Orlando Festival in Netherlands, Kuhmo in Finland and other venues in Sweden, Paris, Frankfurt-Mohan, Wigmore Hall in London, the Paris Opera de la Bastille, the Berlin Schauspielhaus, as well in mid-European festival at Europa-Musicale in Munich.   The Martinu Quartet is a regular guest at The Prague Spring Festival.

They have recorded the complete seven Martinu's string quartets for the NAXOS label.   In 2003 they released the works of Bodorová (Terezín Ghetto Requiem) and Stevenson which received an award of the CD of the Month on internet of British MW Classical Music Web. In 2004 they received respectful award MIDEM in Cannes as a best CD of the year in the solo/ensemble repertoire of 20th Century.

The Martinu Quartet boasts a broad repertoire, with special emphasis on Czech chamber music. Apart from many recordings for Czech Radio, Radio France, BBC, ARD, ORF, the Martinu Quartet appears on the recording labels Naxos, Harmonia Mundi, Panton, Romantic Robot, Arco Diva, Studio Matous and others.