Antonín Dvořák remains the most famous and popular Czech composer of the 19th century. His Slavonic Dances and New World Symphony are among today’s best known classics. Dvořák’s first surviving piece of chamber music, the String Quintet, Opus 1, evokes Schubert rather than Bohemia, yet displays signs of future mastery. The String Quintet, Opus 97, written during the composer’s time in America, thirty years later, is known as the American Quintet. Whatever influences Dvořák may have drawn from America, as a composer he remained thoroughly Bohemian and, as in his best chamber works, the Quintet combines lively dance themes with beautiful melody.