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1841-1904
Dramatis personae: characters and connections in the life of Dvořák
- Karel Komzák
- Director of the village band where Dvořák played violin as a child; band later grew into the orchestra of the Provisional Theatre in Prague with Dvořák as principal violist.
- Johannes Brahms
- Influential with Simrock, music publisher in Berlin; his recommendation launched Dvořák’s career as a published composer.
- Jeannette Thurber
- Founder of the National Conservatory in New York; invited Dvořák to head the Conservatory and develop an American nationalist style of musical composition. Also founded the American Opera Company in 1885 (dedicated to performance tours with standard repertoire in English translation), and sponsored the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s New York debut in 1888-89.
- Henry Thacker Burleigh
- 26-year-old student at National Conservatory when Dvořák arrived. Back home in Erie, Pennsylvania, Burleigh had learned Go Down, Moses and other spirituals from his blind grandfather, a former slave. In addition to becoming Dvořák’s student, friend, and personal assistant—and singing spirituals for him—Burleigh taught at the Conservatory and sang solos at St. George’s Church (1894-1946) and Temple Emanuel (1920-25). A charter member of ASCAP (1914), he was admired by Paul Robeson as a mentor.
- Spillville, Iowa
- Not a person, but still a character in Dvořák’s life! During his summer vacation in this Czech-populated village in 1893, Dvořák met members of the touring Kickapoo Medicine Show, traveled to Chicago to perform on “Czech Day” at the World’s Columbian Exposition, and to St. Paul, where he saw the Minnehaha Falls.
- Boston
- Two Dvořák works had their world premieres in Boston:
November 25, 1889: definitive version of the G-major String Quintet, op. 18 January 1, 1894: F-major String Quartet, no. 12, known as the “American”
Antonin Dvořák’s life weaves the elements of talent, luck, and logic into beautiful, symmetrical patterns. As a child, for example, he played polkas and mazurkas as a violinist with a village band. As an adult, he used folk and peasant influences to become one of four top Czech nationalist composers, along with Bedřich Smetana, Zdenko Fibich, and Leoš Janáček.
In 1875, one of the judges for the Viennese Stipendium for Artists was the influential Johannes Brahms. In addition to awarding him the Stipendium (for the second of five years in a row), Brahms recommended his works to his publisher, Simrock, helping catapult Dvořák’s career.
As a young composer, Dvořák systematically studied and emulated the musical styles of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Wagner. When Jeannette Thurber invited him to develop a nationalist American style, Dvořák learned Native American and African-American music. His students included Rubin Goldmark and Harry Rowe Shelley, who in turn taught Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, and Charles Ives: thus he is their musical grandfather.
Childhood
Antonín Dvořák was the first of eight surviving children (of 14) of a semi-professional zither player who worked as a butcher and innkeeper. He studied violin and singing in school, where his talents were recognized enough to earn him a seat in the village band. At the age of 12, he was sent to Zionice to learn German and further his musical skills in piano, organ, violin, and continuo and theory. At 16, he attended the Prague Organ School, also playing viola in Cecilia Society concerts. At 18, he graduated as the second-best student in his class, joined Karel Komzák’s dance band as a violist, and was rejected in his audition to become organist for the church of St. Jindřich.
Young adulthood
Dvořák remained principal violist with the dance band when it was absorbed into the orchestra of the new Provisional Theatre in 1862, the first Czech theatre in Prague. Visiting conductor/composers included Wagner and Smetana. At 24, Dvořák began teaching Josefina and Anna Čermáková, daughters of a Prague goldsmith, to play the piano. Known as a performer, he also began composing privately. In 1871, he left the orchestra to pursue composition, and decided that 1866-71 had been his “mad period”—so he destroyed some works and re-started his opus numbers.
In 1865, Dvořák dedicated a song cycle (Cyprise, “Cypress Tress”) to Josefina Čermáková, and in 1872 he married Anna.
Fame and fortune
Dvořák won the Austrian State Stipendium for artists five years in a row, 1874-78. In 1875, Johannes Brahms joined the judging panel for the Stipendium, and in 1877 Brahms wrote a letter about Dvořák to Simrock, his publisher in Berlin, praising Dvořák‘s works as “pretty,” “piquant,” and “practical.” Among other publications, Simrock commissioned Dvořák‘s Slavonic Dances for piano duet. A positive review of the dances in Berlin’s National-Zeitung launched Dvořák’s international career. His success was recognized back home in Prague and led to more commissions.
World traveler: England, Russia, America
In 1883 Dvořák made the first of nine trips to England, conducting and composing. For his English patrons, he set choral commissions on Czech subjects. Dvořák’s links to the English publisher Novello helped him negotiate with Simrock in Germany. His English success also helped him afford property in the village of Vysoká where he could retreat for summers with his family—and where he later wrote most of Rusalka, within view of a forest glade, a lake, and his brother-in-law’s neo-Renaissance manor.
In 1888 Dvořák met Tchaikovsky in Prague. Later Tchaikovsky would invite Dvořák to tour Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In 1891 Dvořák joined the faculty at Prague Conservatory and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Cambridge.
In September 1892 he left for New York, invited by Jeannette Thurber to direct the National Conservatory of Music. He wrote to a friend, “The Americans expect great things of me. I am to show them the way into the Promised Land, the realm of a new, independent art, in short a national style of music!”
The National Conservatory prided itself on accepting and funding a diverse group of artists. One of the Conservatory’s African-American students was Harry Burleigh. Dvořák asked Burleigh to teach him the spirituals he had learned from his grandfather, and encouraged him to transcribe and harmonize spirituals for concert use, saying that Go Down, Moses was “as great as a Beethoven melody.”
Dvořák’s best-known work from his American years was his Ninth Symphony, labeled “From the New World.” He also wrote chamber music, a piano suite, and Biblické písně (“Biblical Songs”).
Dvořák’s Operas
Dvořák wrote, “I consider opera the most advantageous of genres for the nation. Large sections of society hear such music, and hear it very often.”
- Alfred, 1870
- German libretto about liberation of Anglo-Saxons from Danish rule
- Král a uhlíř (“The King and the Charcoal Burner”), 1871; 2nd version, op. 14, 1874
- Tvrdé palice (“The Stubborn Lovers”), op. 17, 1874
- Vanda, op. 25, 1875
- Polish historical topic
- Šelma sedlák (“The Cunning Peasant”), op. 37, 1877
- Dimitrij, op. 64, 1882; 2nd version, 1894
- Historical sequel to Boris Godunov; missed deadline for opening of Czech National Theatre in September 1881; theatre burned down in August 1881; opera premiered at New Czech Theatre, October 1882.Dimitri and Rusalka are Dvořák’s most important stage works. Uses folk style: mazurka rhythms for Poles, modal scales for Russians.
- Jakobin (“The Jacobin”), op. 84, 1888, revised 1897
- Čert a Káča (“The Devil and Kate”), op. 112, 1899
- Libretto based on Czech fairy tale of a woman who goes to hell and gives the Devil a bad time; music shows contrast between earth and underworld.
- Rusalka, op. 114, 1900
- Dvořák’s greatest operatic success. Music shows contrast between the human world and the world of nymphs and sprites.
- Armida, op. 115, 1903
- Based on Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, a Renaissance epic with extensive musical settings. Dvořák had to leave the premiere (March 25, 1904) early because of sudden pain in his hip. His health deteriorated, and he died on May 1, 1904.
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