Serenade for Strings in E Major, Opus 22

• Dvořák wrote this serenade for string orchestra during May 3-14, 1875.
• The work was first performed by the Filharmonia Orchestra of Prague on Dec. 10, 1876, conducted by Adolf Cech.
• This is one of the works Dvořák included in his 1877 application to the Austrian State Stipendium for Artists (a grant application). One of the judges in 1877 was Johannes Brahms, who was so impressed with Dvořák’s work that he wrote to his publisher Simrock, recommending that they publish Dvořák’s music. Simrock took Brahms’s recommendation, and Dvořák’s career soon took off.¹

“In connection with the State grant, I have for several years past had great pleasure in the works of Antonín Dvořák (pronounced ‘Dworschak’) in Prague…Dvořák has written all sorts of things, operas (Czech), symphonies, quartets and piano music. There is no doubt he is very talented. And then he is also poor. I beg you to think the matter over.”

Brahms, letter to Fritz Simrock, December 1877.²

1. Klaus Döge, “Dvořák, Antonín,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed February 24, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051222.
2. Otokar Sourek, Antonín Dvořák: Letters and Reminiscences, trans. Roberta Finlayson Samsour (Prague: Artaria, 1954), 38-39.