The Prague Conservatoire cannot boast of having had Antonín Dvořák as a student because Dvořák graduated from Prague’s Organ School, but the conservatoire did hire him as a teacher. When the composer arrived at the conservatoire, he was nearly 50 years old and at the zenith of his career. He soon received another offer, which he accepted after much deliberation: the position of director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. For this reason, Dvořák took a leave of absence from his Prague position from 1892 to 1895, after which he returned to teaching in Prague, and from 1901 until the end of his life he served simultaneously as the school’s director. Before departing for America, Dvořák gave a unique farewell concert tour that lasted nearly half a year. The programmes of the 40 concerts in Bohemian and Moravian towns consisted almost exclusively of Dvořák’s chamber music, most frequently featuring his piano trios played by Prague Conservatoire professors: violinist Ferdinand Lachner, cellist Hanuš Wihan, and the composer at the piano. In Dvořák’s oeuvre, there are four preserved piano trios. He wrote his second trio, the Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 26, in January 1876, less than a year after his first trio, from which it greatly differs. Dvořák was constantly driven headlong by his innate desire to discover, experiment, and solve difficult problems. A born melodist, Dvořák never suffered from an inadequate supply of tunes, but in this trio he was deliberately economical in using thematic material. No movement has more than two themes, and the second movement is in fact based on just a single theme, and yet there is still sufficient internal contrast. The Piano Trio in G minor was played on the farewell tour in several towns in Bohemia and Moravia. At a concert at the Rudolfinum (18 February 1892), it was performed by the three Prague Conservatoire professors as the opening work on the programme.
