PERFORMERS
- Emilie Anne Gendron, violin
- Guillermo Laporta, flute
- Julia Yang, cello
- Matthew Cohen, viola
ABOUT THE CONCERT
Antonin Dvorak composed his String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96—the "American"—in 1893 during a restful summer among the Czech-speaking community of Spillville, Iowa, where the Bohemian composer vacationed while directing the National Conservatory in New York. Sketched in only a few days and completed within weeks, it radiates open-air lyricism and the pentatonic, folk-inflected melody of his American period, from its sunny opening to the whirling finale. It remains one of the best-loved works in the entire quartet repertoire. Dvorak, one of the great nineteenth-century Czech composers, drew on Bohemian and American idioms alike. CreArtBox performs it here in an arrangement featuring flute in place of a violin.