DVORAK'S music took some time to make its way. beyond the bounds of his own country, but by the beginning of the last decade of the nineteenth century, when he had reached his fiftieth year, several of his more important works had been enthusiastically welcomed in America. In 1892 the National Conservatory of Music in New York invited him to become its Director, and, with the permission of the Prague Conservatoire, to which he was already bound, he went to the States and was given a splendid reception alike as teacher and conductor of his own music. But the noise and bustle of such a city depressed him, and after three years of growing homo sickness, he resigned his post and returned to the simplicity of his own country, taking up his old post as Professor in Prague.
This pianoforte quartet belongs to the period just before the American visit, so that it has never been claimed, like several of the works written in New York or after his return, as belong. ing to America and inspired by the native tunes. This is the genuine Bohemian Dvorak as we know him in the Slavonic dances.