Pieces › Antonín Dvořák

String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96 (“American”)

4 movements

Antonín Dvořák · 1893 · F major · 853 bars · 564 chords analysed

Composed in 1893 during a summer in the Czech community of Spillville, Iowa. Dvořák said he wanted to write “something really melodious and simple”.

Dvořák wrote 14 string quartets. The best known is the “American” (1893), composed in three weeks during a summer holiday in Spillville, Iowa, with tunes that sound like folk songs but are all his own.

Keys visited: F major, D minor, A minor, A major, C♯ minor, F♯ minor, D major, C major, F minor, D♭ major, B♭ major, G minor.