The Pavel Haas Quartet’s programme features works influenced by the composers’ personal circumstances and shared concerns.

Smetana, whose autobiographical quartet presents scenes ‘From my life’, wrote that its four players ‘should converse together in an intimate circle about the things which so deeply trouble me’. Erwin Schulhoff’s String Quartet No. 1, meanwhile, dates from the short-lived Czechoslovak Republic’s hugely creative interwar years.