Based in Prague, the multi-award-winning Bennewitz Quartet is regarded as a cultural ambassador for the Czech Republic, embodying the Bohemian-Czech sound idiom par excellence. The ensemble is named after the important violinist and founder of the Czech violin school Antonín Bennewitz. The programme includes Brahms' predominantly cheerful third string quartet, which he wrote in 1875 during a summer holiday on the Neckar near Heidelberg.
For the string quintet by their compatriot Dvořák, the four Czechs have borrowed reinforcements from the Salzburg Hagen Quartet: Violist Veronika Hagen completes the line-up in the Bohemian master's third and final string quintet. Composed in 1893, it is one of the pieces that, like his 9th Symphony „From the New World“ and the 12th String Quartet with the nickname „American“, we owe to the composer's extended stay in the USA. Whether and to what extent some of the motifs and melodies originate from indigenous music that fascinated Dvořák has been a matter of some controversy among musicologists, though.