I frequently listen to a wide variety of music. However, even as a student, I noticed that the music I enjoyed began to feel distant from the music I was writing. This is part of the reason I strive to avoid drawing directly from the music I enjoy listening to – not to extend it or provide commentary… I consider listening to music and composing to be two completely different activities that require a distinct mental framework. Yet when I reflect on the opening sections of my saxophone quartet fifteen years later, I recall how much I was listening to late medieval and early Renaissance music at the time, and I also cannot shake the feeling that this fact is somehow mysteriously embedded in the music. 

The quartet was composed in 2010, following a commission from the Contempuls festival for the outstanding French-Swiss saxophone quartet XASAX.
 

Luboš Mrkvička