Streichquartette opp. 105 & 106

Dvoràk's last quartets.
It is too often forgotten that Antonin Dvoràk, composer of nine symphonies (including the famous "From the New World", op.95) and no fewer than fourteen operas, was just as successful in the field of chamber music. The central form of the genre, the string quartet, occupied him throughout his career: coming just after the celebrated "American" Quartet, nos.13 and 14 may be seen as a final "summing-up" on the part of the composer as he returned home from the United States heaped with honours, at the end of a life that had been weel-ordered yet agitated by his very success. Dvoràk in his very essence, in fact.