Extending String Quartet - Fellow Travelers

Company of acquaintances

Dvořák was happiest in New York in the company of other emigrated Czechs. His Twelfth String Quartet represents the walks through the American landscape he took every day shortly after dawn.

Farewell to homeland

When Bartók composed his last string quartet (he completed the work in Budapest in August 1939), he had already said goodbye to his homeland in spirit. Only his mother's poor health kept him at home. She died in December, and the composer immediately left for America.