String Quintet in G Major, Op. 77

The 34-year-old Antonín Dvořák wrote the String Quintet in G Major at an artistic crossroads. After spending the first part of his career writing music based on the style of Liszt and Wagner, Dvořák was in rehearsals at the Prague Provisional Theater in 1873 for his opera King and Charcoal Burner. The work was declared too difficult—but rather than simplifying the music, Dvořák composed an entirely new score to the same libretto, declaring the update was “national rather than Wagnerian.” This new compositional voice set him on a path to fame. He won Austrian stipends in 1874 and 1875, attracting the attention of Brahms in the process, who helped Dvořák obtain a contract with the famed publisher Simrock.

Completed in 1875, the Quintet in G Major marked a significant point on Dvořák’s upward trajectory. Written for the Artistic Circle’s chamber music competition in Prague, the quintet won first prize for its “distinction of theme, technical skill in polyphonic composition, and mastery of form.” The quintet initially consisted of five movements rather than four; the Andante religioso later became the Nocturne for Strings, Op. 40. (Simrock published the four-movement version, which is now standard today, as Op. 77 in 1888.) Dvořák adds double bass to the standard quartet of two violins, viola, and cello, adding a sense of depth and space. Unlike later chamber works like the “American” String Quartet, Dvořák builds entire movements out of small musical building blocks. The Scherzo and the Finale, for example, develop from the same five notes. In the Poco andante, sometimes compared to Schubert, a sense of musical economy predominates. Dvořák’s careful deployment of the fifth instrument—the double bass—creates a rich musical texture throughout the work.