String Quartet No. 12

At a glance

• What it isthe first movement of String Quartet No. 12, in F major, marked Allegro ma non troppo, fast but not too fast.
• Who, when, whywritten in the summer of 1893, while Dvořák was staying in Spillville, a Czech village in Iowa.
• What to listen forthe first theme brought out by the viola, and the color of its simple five-note melody.

Listen for

• The viola's songover the shimmering violins, the viola presents the theme. Dvořák himself was a violist.
• Five notesthe melody favors a five-note scale, giving it a simple, open feeling.
• Cello and violinthe cello and violins then take up the theme and spread it wide before moving to a gentle second theme.

When it was written

In the summer of 1893, having finished his first year in New York, Dvořák went with his family to Spillville, a small village in Iowa. Czech immigrants lived there together, so Czech was spoken and there was a Czech church, where he even played the organ.

Dvořák noted in the score that he finished the sketch of this quartet in three days and completed the piece in a little over two weeks. Many listeners feel that the easy summer he spent in a village so like home lives on in the quartet's bright colors.