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Dvorak: String Quartets, Vol. 5 on CD

Despite his many successes, Antonin Dvorak always claimed to have remained a "simple Bohemian musician" - a self-description that, ironically, has made it harder for posterity to appreciate the breadth of his work fully. This is particularly evident in the realm of chamber music, a field Dvorak explored even more extensively than his mentor, Johannes Brahms. With more than a dozen string quartets alone, alongside various other smaller and larger formats, Dvorak's body of work offers a broad spectrum, where the so-called "Slavic" tones are by no means always the dominant voice. With this fifth double album, the Hagen Quartet concludes it's acclaimed complete recording, which spans the fascinating range from Dvorak's early grapplings with Wagner and Liszt to his later reflections on the "New World", revealing unexpected depths behind the face of the "humble musician".