Antonín Dvořák (1841 - 1904) was a Czech composer whose music combined the forms of the Austro-German classical tradition with the melodic and rhythmic character of Bohemian and Moravian folk music. [1] He wrote nine symphonies, numerous concertos, chamber works and operas, and became the first Czech composer to achieve a genuinely international reputation. [2] His years as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York produced his best-known work, the Symphony No. 9 "From the New World". [3]
Early life and training
Dvořák was born on 8 September 1841 in Nelahozeves, a village on the Vltava north of Prague, where his father kept an inn and worked as a butcher. He showed early musical ability, learned the violin as a child, and was sent to study in nearby towns before entering the Pipe Organ School in Prague, from which he graduated in 1859. [1]
For more than a decade afterwards he earned a modest living as an orchestral violist, playing in the band that became the orchestra of the Provisional Theatre in Prague under Bedřich Smetana, and supplementing his income by teaching and by working as a church organist. He composed steadily during these years, destroying or withdrawing much of what he wrote. [2]
Recognition and the Slavonic Dances
Dvořák's career changed after he was awarded the Austrian State Stipendium in the mid-1870s. Johannes Brahms sat on the jury, recognised the younger composer's gift, and recommended him to the Berlin publisher Fritz Simrock. Simrock issued the Moravian Duets and then commissioned a set of orchestral dances on Slavonic themes. The Slavonic Dances of 1878 were an immediate commercial success and carried Dvořák's name across Europe. [1]
Commissions and invitations followed, particularly from England, where he appeared repeatedly as a conductor of his own works and where his choral pieces, among them the Stabat Mater, were widely performed. He was appointed a professor at the Prague Conservatory in 1891 and received an honorary doctorate from Charles University. [3]
Years in the United States
From 1892 to 1895 Dvořák served as director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York. He urged American composers to build a national style on the music of African Americans and Native Americans, and drew on that idea in his own work. The Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", was premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1893 and remains one of the most frequently played symphonies in the repertoire. [2]
The same period produced the String Quartet in F, known as the "American", written during a summer spent among Czech settlers in Spillville, Iowa, and the Cello Concerto in B minor, completed in 1895 and generally regarded as the central work in the cello repertoire. [3]
Later years and legacy
Homesickness and unpaid salary brought him back to Bohemia in 1895. His final years were devoted largely to symphonic poems based on Czech folk ballads and to opera, including Rusalka of 1901, whose "Song to the Moon" became one of his most popular pieces. He was appointed director of the Prague Conservatory in 1901 and died in Prague on 1 May 1904. [1]
Among the honours he received were the Order of the Iron Crown and honorary membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London. His pupils, including Josef Suk and Vítězslav Novák, carried his influence into the next generation of Czech music, and his orchestral and chamber works remain concert staples worldwide. [2]
