Dvořák: String Quartet No. 11 in C major, Op. 61, B 121 (with Score)

Antonín Dvořák:
String Quartet No. 11 in C major, Op. 61, B 121 (with Score)
Composed: completed 10 November 1881
Performance: Prague String Quartet

00:00 1. Allegro (C major)
14:54 2. Poco adagio e molto cantabile (F major)
23:17 3. Scherzo. Allegro vivo (A minor)
31:21 4. Finale. Vivace (C major)

At almost forty years of age, Dvořák was now an internationally recognised composer to the extent that he was literally being showered with commissions for new works, not only from publishers, but also from performers themselves. And so it was that, within two years of fulfilling his obligations towards the Florentine Quartet, for whom he wrote String Quartet No. 10 in E flat major, he was already having to focus on a new composition in the quartet genre, on this occasion for the chamber ensemble led by court Kapellmeister Joseph Hellmesberger. Dvořák wanted to get down to work straight away, but he was still working on a lengthy opus, the opera Dimitrij. He thus divided his tasks in such a way that his mornings were devoted to the opera, and the afternoons to the new quartet. Dvořák began by writing the first movement in F major, but he wasn’t satisfied with the result. So he laid it to one side and began writing a completely new piece, this time in C major, which he worked on in October and November 1881. The premiere was planned for December of that year but, due to a fire at the Vienna Ringtheater, it never took place. The first documented performance was not held until almost a year later, on 2 November 1882, premiered in Berlin by the Joachim Quartet.

https://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/en/work...