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Masterclass: Dvořák String Quartet no.12 ‘American’, second movement

2025-07-04T08:49:00

Dover Quartet 3_photo credit Roy Cox

Cellist of the Dover Quartet Camden Shaw illustrates the importance of sound exploration in this bittersweet movement that can be seen as a metaphor for life and its many tribulations

Dvořák’s ‘American’ Quartet was one of the first quartets that I ever played as a middle-schooler, like many musicians. Many years later with the Dover Quartet, we worked on this piece a lot – firstly 15 years ago, and now, for the first time since then, as part of a larger project exploring the interaction between this work and that of indigenous people from the Americas. The slow movement is one of my favourite movements to teach. We as a quartet have discussed and discovered endlessly how important it is to get the heartbeat of the movement working properly…

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