ELIZABETH SELLARS violin
WILMA SMITH violin
HELEN IRELAND viola
ZOE KNIGHTON cello

AGATHA YIM, POLYPHONIC PICTURES filming and editing

THOMAS GRUBB, MANO MUSICA sound engineering, editing and mastering

Filmed May 2023 at Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank

This project was made possible through support from the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, and the City of Melbourne.

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK 1841-1904

String Quartet No. 13 in G major, Op.106 (composed 1895)

I. Allegro moderato
II. Adagio ma non troppo
III. Molto vivace - Un poco più mosso
IV. Finale. Andante sostenuto - Allegro con fuoco

Written in 1895 when he was thoroughly relieved to be home in his native Czechoslovakia after his stint in New York, Dvořák wrote this G major quartet and the A flat major quartet in quick succession. A prolific chamber composer, it will come as no surprise that Dvořák was a viola player, his first official opus was a viola string quintet followed closely by his first string quartet. He wrote a total of 14 string quartets; the 12th quartet is best known as “The American”, and at least five others considered masterworks. This G major quartet came out of writer's block that Dvořák was feeling while composing the A flat major quartet. Eventually, it became the second last quartet that he completed. What a great way to procrastinate - write a magnificent chamber work!

It was Mrs Jeanette Thurber’s invitation to Dvořák to be Artistic Director of the new National Conservatory of Music in New York and help develop a national style of music in America that inadvertently inspired Amy Beach; so perhaps it is to Thurber that we should look to as the real influence behind the assimilation of native melodies. Dvořák took this task to heart, immersing himself in spirituals, plantation songs of the south, and transcriptions of Amerindian melodies.

This four movement work features more rhythmic vitality than melodic development, use of pentatonic modes, and short motifs rather than long extended melodies; reflecting the influence that exploring folk tunes from his native Bohemia as well as his adopted home for a few years, America, had on his harmonic sensibilities. As well as the Beethovian, deeply felt Adagio, it is worth noting, as with Amy Beach’s Quartet for Strings, this work is written in cyclic form with the finale recalling the first movement’s two main themes and even a bit of the second.