Henriëtte Bosmans was born in 1895 into a musical family; her father was principal cello of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and her mother was a piano teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory. She wrote her Piano Trio in 1921 as a birthday gift for her mother. In 1883, Dvořák was approaching the height of his fame in Europe; the majority of his Op. 65, written in that year, is entirely typical of the composer. Its powerful tone and tragic manner is perhaps prompted by personal circumstances; just two months before he began work on the Trio, Dvorák’s mother died.