Dvořák's fourteen string quartets cover the bulk of his composing career, from 1862 (No.
He removed a good deal of what he considered the unnecessary "filler" in the original version.
[1] The composition was dedicated to the director of Prague Conservatory, Josef Krejčí [cs], who was Dvořák's teacher of music theory at the Prague Organ School.
[1] No actual performance has been documented before 1888, when the revised version of the work was played at a concert of the Umělecká beseda (Arts Discussion Group) in the Rudolfinum in Prague.
The players were members of the orchestra of the National Theatre, Karel Ondříček, Jan Pelikán, Petr Mareš and Alois Neruda.