Czech composer Bedřich Smetana titled his String Quartet No. 1 “From My Life” as its four movements are autobiographical chapters of his life and loves up to age 52 when he composed the work in 1876.

The first movement represents his youthful "inclination to art," and a portent of catastrophe that would return in the final movement. The second movement contains a nationalistic Czech polka, which recalls his time as a composer of dance music and his recognition as a passionate dancer. The third movement is a recollection of his first love who would become his wife (he would later remarry after her death). The final movement begins with more dance as a proud symbol of himself as a composer of nationalistic music. But this is interrupted, first with a high E note on the violin mirroring the tinnitus that signaled the beginning of his hearing loss that would make him completely deaf within a year, two years before writing this quartet. This is followed by a return of the portentous motive from the first movement. And while the Quartet ends with a fade out of the music to silence, as likely happened with his hearing, he continued to compose for another ten years before his death in 1874. The String Quartet No. 1 “From My Life” by Bedřich Smetana is today’s Midday Masterpiece at 2:00 pm.