Antonín Dvořák's

String Quintet A string quintet is a musical composition for five string players. As an extension to the string quartet (two violins, a viola, and a cello), a string quintet includes a fifth string instrument, usually a second viola (a so-called "viola quintet" ...

No. 2 in

G major G major (or the key of G) is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp. Its relative minor is E minor and its parallel minor is G minor. The G major scale is: Notable composi ...

, Op. 77 (B. 49), was originally composed in early March 1875 and first performed on March 18, 1876 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

at the concert of the ''

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''. It is scored for two

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

, and

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

. First marked as Op. 18, it was later slightly revised in 1888 as Op. 77. It has since been assigned the

Burghauser number Jarmil Michael Burghauser (born Jarmil Michael Mokrý, 21 October 1921, Písek19 February 1997, Prague) was a Czech composer, conductor, and musicologist. After the short-lived Prague Spring, he incurred the disfavor of his country's Communist r ...

B. 49. Dvořák entered the piece in a competition and was awarded 5 ducats for the composition. The work bears the competition's motto, "To my Nation", as its dedication. Although the original work was scored in five movements, Dvořák later withdrew the second movement, entitled "Intermezzo," due to concerns that having two slow movements made the work too lengthy. This extracted movement had been based on the central section, marked 'Andante religioso', of his String Quartet No. 4 (which was not published in his lifetime), and was in turn later reworked and republished as the Nocturne for Strings in B major, Op. 40 (B. 47). Some modern ensembles choose to restore the intermezzo when performing the work. The work was published in 1888 by Simrock, not under its original opus number 18, but as Opus 77.

Structure

The quintet consists of four

movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

Selected recordings

*''String Quintet No. 2, String Sextet''. CD Supraphon (11 1461-2 131). *''The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: Dvorak Serenade.'' Perf. Joseph Silverstein, Ani Kavafian, Paul Neubauer, Gary Hoffman, Edgar Meyer. CD. Delos, 1995.

References

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External links

*
String Quintet No. 2 on a comprehensive Dvorak sitePerformance of String Quintet No. 2
by

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) is an American organization dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music in New York City. It is the largest organization of its kind in the country for chamber music. CMS's home is ...

from the

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MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

format String quintets by Antonín Dvořák 1875 compositions Compositions in G major {{chamber-composition-stub