Antonín Dvorák's Two Waltzes for String Quartet, B. 105, are in fact arrangements made in February 1880 of two numbers from his set of eight waltzes for pianoforte, Op. 54, composed during the previous few months. Dvorák's publisher, riding high on the successful tide of Dvorák's nationalistic works—of which the Slavonic Dances, Slavonic Rhapsodies, and Czech Suite are most notable—wished to continue mining that lucrative vein by calling the Op. 54 works Slavonic Waltzes, but Dvorák, knowing full well that the waltz is an Austrian's birthright, wouldn't hear of it. Still, there is something distinctly un-Viennese about Dvorák's waltzes—that same hint of Bohemianism that shows through even in his "American" works.

The two waltzes included in this string quartet arrangement are Op. 54, No. 1 in A major, and Op. 54, No. 4 in D flat minor. String bass can, optionally, be employed to make a string quintet, and by that same token, the waltzes can be played by string orchestra with no harm done.

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