composer

While Dvořák was engaged in detailed study of works by the great masters, he was already writing his own music. He probably wrote a large number of works during this time, none of which were performed; he was extremely self-critical and destroyed the majority of his scores. The first work he thought well enough of to assign it an opus number, thus officially embarking on his career as a composer, was String Quintet in A minor from 1861 (Dvořák was nineteen at the time); this was followed by String Quartet in A major, Op. 2. It wasn’t long before he tried his hand at a major musical form, producing his First symphony in the key of C minor with the subtitle “The Bells of Zlonice”, after which he immediately set about writing his extensive Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, which he completed within a mere two months. In the meantime he even managed to write his Cello Concerto in A major for a colleague in the orchestra – all this in cramped conditions living in a single rented room which he shared with several other lodgers.