String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 ‘American Quartet’ - Antonín Dvořák

String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 ‘American Quartet’ by Antonín Dvořák

Dvořák completed this string quartet during the summer of 1893 while on a holiday in Spillville, Iowa. Dvořák decided on Spillville through a man called Josef Jan Kovařík. Josef was a student of violin at the National Conservatory in New York, the same conservatory at which Dvořák served as director from 1892 to 1895. Josef and his family lived in a Czech community in Spillville.

Notes made by Dvořák at the time indicated he completed the quartet in only 13 days. The notes also indicate the work contains short motifs that are meant to capture the sounds of his life in America, with sounds of a train in the fourth movement, and the call of a scarlet tanager in the third movement.

The first performance of the quartet was at a private gathering in June of 1893 in Spillville, with Dvořák playing first violin and members of the Kovařík family playing the other parts. The first public performance took place in January of 1893 in Boston.

The work is comprised of four movements:
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Lento
III. Molto vivace
IV. Finale: vivace me non troppo