Antonin Dvorak
His Life
Dvorak was born in Nelahozeves near Prague (today the Czech Republic) where he spent most of his life. He studied music in Prague's only Organ School at the end of the 1850s, and slowly developed himself as an accomplished violinist and violist. Throughout the 1860s he played viola in the Bohemian Provisional Theater Orchestra. The need to supplement his income by teaching left Dvorák with limited free time, and in 1871 he gave up the orchestra in order to compose. He fell in love with one of his pupils and wrote a song cycle, Cypress Trees, expressing his anguish at her marriage to another man. However, he soon overcame his despondency and in 1873 married her sister, Anna Cermakova.
From 1892 to 1895, Dvorák was the director of the National Conservatory in New York City. The Conservatory was founded by a wealthy socialite, Jeannette Thurber, who wanted a well-known composer as director in order to lend prestige to her institution. She wrote to Dvorák, asking him to accept the position, and he agreed, providing that she were willing to meet his conditions: that talented Native American and African-American students, who could not afford the tuition, must be admitted for free, an early example of need-based financial aid. She agreed to his conditions, and he sailed to America.
It was during this time as director of the Conservatory that Dvorák formed a friendship with Harry Burleigh, who became an important African-American composer. Dvorák taught Burleigh composition, and in return, Burleigh spent hours on end singing traditional American Spirituals to Dvorák. Burleigh went on to compose settings of these Spirituals which compare favorably with European classical composition.
In the winter and spring of 1893, while in New York, he wrote his most popular work, the Symphony No.9, "From the New World". Following an invitation from his family, he spent the summer of 1893 in the Czech-speaking community of Spillville, Iowa. While there he composed two of his most famous chamber works, the Quartet in F ("The American"), and the String Quintet in E flat.
Also while in the United States, he heard a performance of a cello concerto by the composer Victor Herbert. He was so excited by the possibilities of the cello and orchestra combination displayed in this concerto that he wrote a cello concerto of his own, the Cello Concerto in B minor (1895). Since then the concerto, considered one of the greatest of the genre, has grown in popularity and frequently performed today. He also left an unfinished work, the Cello Concerto in A major (1865), which was completed and orchestrated by the German composer Günter Raphael between 1925 and 1929 and by Jarmil Burghauser in 1952.
Dvorák had a colorful personality as well as a true bulldog-looking face. In addition to music, there were two particular passions in his life: locomotive engines and the breeding of pigeons.
He eventually returned to Prague where he was director of the conservatory from 1901 until his death in 1904. At the end of his life Dvorak was in serious financial straits, as he had sold his many compositions for so little he had hardly anything to live on. He is interred in the Vyehrad cemetery in Prague.
His Music
Dvorak was one of several composers from the Romantic era who let his cultural roots shine through his music. Although the structure of his music follows generally along classical lines, his rhythms and melodies seem to embody the folk traditions of his native Czechoslovakia and surrounding regions. Although his early circumstances were relatively poor, he learned violin, viola, piano and organ at school. The young Dvorak was clearly very interested in music making and destined for a career in music. He later studied in Prague and there for a number of years he played viola in the Provisional Theatre Orchestra. This gave him some excellent practical experience not only in performing but in orchestral dynamics. The chief conductor of this orchestra was none other than Bedrich Smetana. Smetana was the founding father of the nationalist school of music in his country and Dvorak was to follow his example in this respect for the rest of his life.
Among other composers to influence Dvorak was Wagner. Dvorak played in a concert of Wagner excerpts, conducted by the composer himself, and this experience had a noticable impact on the direction that Dvorak was to take. Another perhaps more lasting influence on his music was Brahms. Their paths crossed when Brahms was one of the judges in a composing competition which Dvorak won three years running. The two became friends and there is clearly much in common with their music in the way that they spoke the romantic idiom while staying true to classical traditions of Beethoven and Schubert. But the two composers differed significantly in their overall sound. While Brahms' sound was often austere, he envied the younger composer's ability to produce infectious melodies with apparent ease. Dvorak's melodies were not based on existing folk-songs but they clearly belonged to the same family. Dvorak also introduced some local dances with characteristic rhythms or forms to his music, such as Polkas, the Furiant and the Ukranian Dumka. These traditional dances permeated his popular sets of "Slavonic Dances" but also found their way into other works. He also produced a number of Symphonic Poems based on Czech stories like The Golden Spinning Wheel and The Water Goblin.
Although his music is generally fresh, happy and extrovert, Dvorak also at times betrayed a melancholy side to his music. As his stature in the music world grew, he took a post as a professor in the Prague Conservatory and later became Director of that establishment. He toured Europe making some fruitful visits to London. He also went to America with his family and took up the director post in the National Conservatory of Music in New York. There he continued his interest in folk music learning about Black American and Native American music traditions. During his stay there he was to produce some of his well-known works including the famous Cello Concerto, a Violin Concerto for Brahms' friend Joachim, the "American Quartet" and his "New World Symphony" which seems to quote four notes from the spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". Dvorak's music for this symphony was originally intended for an opera based on Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" but that project was abandoned. The slow movement from the symphony is said to betray the composer's homesickness for his native land. The melody from this slow movement is played on the Cor Anglais, an instrumental relative of the Oboe. It has been used on television adverts and was the basis for the song "Going Home". Dvorak himself was to go home after 3 years and he died in Prague in 1904.
Symphony No. 6 in D major, op. 60
Symphony No. 8 in G major, op. 88
The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Istvan Kertesz
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, op.95
Carnival Overture, op. 92
In Nature's Realm, op. 91
Scherzo capriccioso, op. 66
My Home, op. 62
The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Istvan Kertesz
Slavonic Dances, B. 83, op.46
Slavonic Dances, B. 147, op. 72
The Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell