After the Fifth Symphony, I turned once more to the cinema and wrote the music for the film The Man with a Gun, produced by Sergei Yutkevich. / After this I wrote my First String Quartet. I began it with no particular thoughts or feelings, and thought that nothing would come of it. For the quartet is one of the most difficult musical genres. But soon the work took a proper hold of me. It turned out to be gay, jolly and lyrical, and I entitled it the ‘Springtime’ Quartet. I was very pleased with the splendid performance of the work by the Beethoven Quartet, who were also the excellent first interpreters of my next chamber work, my Piano Quintet.