A popular musical form of the 17th and 18th centuries, the partita is a cyclical composition of either four to six movements, often times designed as a series of dance and non-dance style movements based on one theme. In the 20th century, due to an increased interest in baroque forms, some composers, for example A. Honegger, H. Kaminski, and M. Reger among others, started to compose partitas. While they frequently maintained this combination of dance and non-dance style movements, they at the same time took the effort to introduce new sound qualities and to newly integrate all parts of the partita. Bohuslav Martinů composed the Partita (Suite No.1) in December 1931. He did not, however, take over the old partita form, but adopted rather the technical approach that was used in this genre. Martinů’s student, Vítězslava Kaprálová, who composed a work called Partita in 1938 under his guidance, explained in a letter to her father: "the partita is neither a contrapunctal approach to the motive, nor a three-part composition; it is a casual, protracted and contrasting approuch above all". Her opinion can be traced back to Martinů’s idea of the partita, built on entirely innovative foundations: clarity and briefness of an overall homophonic texture that enriches the musical expression, each movement introducing a specific rhythmical figure in an infinity of representations. The resulting rampant rhythm, already characteristic of Half-Time, H 142, and La Bagarre, H 155, from the 1920s, later became a dominant feature of the Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, H 271, from 1938.
In spite of the fact that Martinů’s Partita consists of several movements, its music flows "in the same spirit" throughout the composition. It is burly, at times even robust and full of joyful energy. It totally and deliberately lacks poeticism and intimacy. None of the movements could be described as slow; the third movement even resembles a high-spirited scherzo.
The premiere of the Partita by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Václav Talich, took place in 1932, a full year after it was composed. The composition also drew the attention of the world-renowned Swiss conductor Paul Sacher, too, who included the Partita in one of the concerts of his Basel Chamber Orchestra in 1933. It was the Partita that marked the very beginning of a long-lasting and beautiful friendship between Bohuslav Martinů and Paul Sacher. Due to this close friendship between the two of them, a number of important compositions were later commissioned by Sacher in the future, which included, among others, the Double Concerto and the Toccata e due canzoni, H 311.
Sandra Bergmannová, programme of the Bohuslav Martinů Festival's concert, 8. 12. 1998