the knowledge of the instruments" displayed. The String Quintet No. 3 in E major, Op. 97, with a second viola added, was written near the end of his American period in 1893, when he spent a summer holiday in Spillville, Iowa. String quartets In the 1880s Dvořák made a list of his destroyed compositions, including string quartets in B-flat, D and E minor of 1868–70. Dvořák destroyed these compositions during his "mad period" only after copies had already been printed. The number of errors in the parts makes it unlikely that they were ever played. Dvořák kept the manuscripts of these quartets but did not give them opus numbers. They are noted to have numbers B.17, B.18, and B.19 in the Burghauser catalog and show the strong influence of the music of Richard Wagner. The second, third, and fourth quartets illustrate Dvořák's progress as a composer. He demonstrates understanding of highly developed musical language in his D major quartet, shaping the melody of the Slav freedom song Hej Slovane ('Hey, Slavs!') in a variation style. The quartet in E minor is a single movement, including a slow, 63 bars on an F# pedal point. The single movement from the E minor quartet was used five years later in his second string quintet Op. 77, as a second movement named Intermezzo: Nocturne, making this initially a five-movement composition. He later withdrew the second movement and reworked it into the Nocturne for Strings in B major, Op. 40 (B. 47). These show a stronger sense of form and include three separate arrangements: for orchestra (B47), for violin and piano (B48A), and for piano four hands (B48B). During his time in America in 1893, Dvořák composed two of his most popular quartets: the String Quartet No. 12 in F, Op. 96 ("The American") and the String Quintet in E-flat, Op. 97 (B180). Dvořák composed this work in three days after he and his family reunited in Spillville, Iowa. He drew inspiration from the freedom he felt in the country side of America. This piece is distinguishable from his other quartets due to the simplicity of it writing. Throughout the piece, Dvořák uses skipping rhythms, high register of the first violin, and unified key relationships among all movements except for Lento. There is less shaping in thematic material, heavy uses of repetition, and less attention was paid to the development. Shortly after the composition