Dvorák was in such good spirits when he finally left the United States to return to Europe in the spring of 1895 that he spent many weeks just savoring the joy of being home; when he eventually started to work again in November, that joy found very palpable expression in the String Quartet No. 13 in G major, Op. 106. It would be tough to come up with a more unabashedly happy beginning to a piece of music than the opening bars of the first movement; there is extraordinary life to the scherzo movement; and the slow movement is one of the glories of Dvorák's whole catalog. In October 1896, this gem was introduced to the world by the famous Bohemian String Quartet.

The ordinary four movements are in operation here: Allegro moderato, Adagio ma non troppo, Molto vivace, and Andante sostenuto—Allegro con fuoco. Dvorák is too fine a composer to allow his personal sentiments to affect the balance of a piece for the worse, and after the first movement's carefree opening he allows the viola and cello to ponder some sober thoughts in bare octaves. But the violins will have none of this, and reroute the music back into G major with some ecstatic flourishes, so infectious that the lower strings have no choice but to take them up as well. A second theme arrives in the unlikely key of B flat major; it, too, is unconcerned and unaffected.

The Adagio is as deep and honest an expression of contentment as Dvorák ever wrote. The many shifts from E flat major to the parallel minor serve only to reinforce that sentiment by way of absence.

The scherzo is punctuated and vibrant. As often as not the instruments are waging war against one another, which makes the gentle trio section a real pleasure. In the slow introduction to the finale Dvorák finds his way into (and immediately out of) a realm that Jean Sibelius called home. The body of the movement can hardly control its own ebullience, though from time to time one wonders if perhaps it should.

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