Antonín Dvořák Totally Explained

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Antonín Leopold Dvořák ((often pronounced in English as [ˈdvɔɹʒ̝æk]) ; September 8, 1841 – May 1, 1904) was a Czech composer of Romantic music, who employed the idioms and melodies of the folk music of his native Bohemia and Moravia. His works include operas, symphonic, choral and chamber music.

Biography

Early career

Dvořák was born on September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, near Prague (then Austrian Empire, today the Czech Republic), where he spent most of his life. His father was a butcher, innkeeper, and professional player of the zither. Dvořák's parents recognized his musical talent early, and he received his earliest musical education at the village school which he entered in 1847, age 6. He studied music in Prague's only Organ School at the end of the 1850s, and gradually developed into an accomplished player of the violin and the viola. Throughout the 1860s he played viola in the Bohemian Provisional Theater Orchestra, which from 1866 was conducted by Bedřich Smetana. The need to supplement his income by teaching left Dvořák with limited free time, and in 1871 he gave up playing in the orchestra in order to compose. During this time, Dvořák fell in love with one of his pupils and wrote a song cycle, Cypress Trees, in attempt to woo the heart of Josefína Čermáková. She married another man, however, and in 1873 Dvořák married her sister, Anna. They had nine children.
At about this time Dvořák began to be recognized as a significant composer. He became organist at St. Adalbert's Church, Prague, and began a period of prolific composition. Dvořák composed his second string quintet in 1875, and in 1877, the critic Eduard Hanslick informed him that his music had attracted the attention of Johannes Brahms, whom he later befriended. Brahms contacted the musical publisher Simrock, who as a result commissioned Dvořák's first set of Slavonic Dances. Published in 1878, these were an immediate success. Dvořák's Stabat Mater (1880) was performed abroad, and after a successful performance in London in 1883, Dvořák was invited to visit England where he appeared to great acclaim in 1884. His Symphony No. 7 was written for London; it premiered there in 1885. In 1891 Dvořák received an honorary degree from the University of Cambridge, and his Requiem premiered later that year in Birmingham at the Triennial Music Festival.

America (1892–1895)

From 1892 to 1895, Dvořák was the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City, at a $15,000 annual salary–a large amount of money. The Conservatory had been founded by a wealthy and philanthropic socialite, Jeannette Thurber; it was located at 126-128 East 17th Street , but was demolished in 1911 and replaced by what is now a high school. Here Dvořák met with Harry Burleigh, one of the earliest African-American composers, his pupil. Burleigh introduced traditional American Spirituals to Dvořák at the latter's request.
   In the winter and spring of 1893, while in New York, Dvořák wrote Symphony No.9, "From the New World". He spent the summer of 1893 with his family in the Czech-speaking community of Spillville, Iowa, to which some of his cousins had earlier immigrated. While there he composed the String Quartet in F (the "American"), and the String Quintet in E flat, as well as a Sonatina for violin and piano.
   Over the course of three months in 1895, Dvořák wrote his'Cello Concerto in B minor. However, problems with Mrs. Thurber about his salary, together with increasing recognition in Europe — he'd been made an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna — and homesickness made him decide to return to Bohemia. He left New York before the end of the spring term.
   Dvořák's New York home was located at 327 East 17th Street near Perlman Place . It was in this home that the Ninth Symphony was written. Despite protests, from the then Czech President Václav Havel amongst others, who wanted the house preserved as a historical site, it was demolished to make room for a Beth Israel Medical Center residence for people with AIDS. To honor Dvořák, however, a statue of him was erected in Stuyvesant Square
   Many conductors have recorded cycles of the symphonies, including István Kertész, Rafael Kubelík, Otmar Suitner, Libor Pešek, Zdenek Macal, Václav Neumann, Witold Rowicki, and Neeme Järvi.
Symphonic poems
Dvořák's symphonic poems (tone poems) are among his most original symphonic works(External Link). He wrote five symphonic poems, all in 1896-1897, and they've sequential opus numbers: The Water Goblin, Op. 107; The Noon Witch, Op. 108; The Golden Spinning Wheel, Op. 109; The Wood Dove, Op. 110; and The Hero's Song, Op. 111. The first four of these works are based upon ballads by the Czech folklorist Karel Erben. The Hero's Song is based on a program of Dvořák's devising and is believed to be autobiographical.(External Link)
Oratorial works
The greatest of Dvořák's oratorial works are his Requiem, Op. 89, Stabat Mater, Te Deum and his Mass in D major. The recording of the Requiem by conductor Karel Ančerl with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Chorus and soloists (1959) was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix du disque de L'Académie Charles Cros.
Concertos
Music critic Harold Schonberg expressed common critical opinion when he wrote that Dvořák wrote "an attractive Piano Concerto in G minor with a rather ineffective piano part, a beautiful Violin Concerto in A minor, and a supreme Cello Concerto in B minor" (The Lives of the Great Composers, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, revised edition, 1980). All the concertos are in the classical three-movement form.
   The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G minor, Op. 33 was the first of three concertos that Dvořák composed and orchestrated, and it's perhaps the least known of those three. Dvořák composed his piano concerto from late August through September 14 1876. Its autograph version contains many corrections, erasures, cuts and additions, the bulk of these made in the piano part. The work was premiered in Prague on March 24 1878, with the orchestra of the Prague Provisional Theatre conducted by Adolf Čech, and the Czech pianist Karel Slavkovský as soloist. As Dvořák wrote: "I see I'm unable to write a Concerto for a virtuoso; I must think of other things." Instead, what Dvořák thought of and created was a concerto with remarkable symphonic values in which the piano plays a leading part in the orchestra rather than opposed to it. The Czech pianist and piano teacher Professor Vilém Kurz subsequently wrote an alternative, somewhat more virtuosic piano part for the concerto, which may, depending on the performer's preference, be played either partially or entirely in lieu of Dvořák's part. In 1919 concert pianist Ilona Kurzová played the first performance of the Kurz version, conducted by Václav Talich.
   The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 53 was the second of the three concertos that Dvořák composed and orchestrated. He had met the great violinist Joseph Joachim in 1878 and decided to write a concerto for him. He finished it in 1879, but Joachim was skeptical of the work. He was a strict classicist and objected to Dvořák's inter alia or his abrupt truncation of the first movement's orchestral tutti, and he also didn't like that the recapitulation was similarly cut short and that it led directly to the slow movement. He never actually played the piece. The concerto was premiered in 1883 in Prague by the violinist František Ondříček, who subsequently performed it in its debuts in Vienna and London. The second (slow) movement is especially celebrated for its lyricism.
   The Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B minor, Op. 104 was the last composed of Dvořák's concertos. He wrote it in 1894-1895 for his friend, the cellist Hanuš Wihan. Wihan and others had asked for a cello concerto for some time, but Dvořák always refused, stating that the cello was a fine orchestral instrument but completely insufficient for a solo concerto.
   Dvořák composed the concerto in New York while serving as the Director of the National Conservatory. In 1894 Victor Herbert, who was also teaching at the Conservatory, had written a cello concerto and presented it in a series of concerts. Dvořák attended at least two performances of Victor Herbert's cello concerto and was inspired to fulfill Wihan's request for a cello concerto. Dvořák's concerto received its premiere in London on March 16 1896, with the English cellist Leo Stern. The work was well received. Brahms said of the work: "Had I known that one could write a cello concerto like this, I'd have written one long ago!"
   Over thirty years earlier in 1865, Dvořák had composed a Cello Concerto in A major, but with accompaniment by piano rather than orchestra. It is believed Dvořák had intended to orchestrate it, but abandoned it. It was orchestrated by the German composer Günter Raphael between 1925 and 1929, and again by his cataloguer Jarmil Burghauser and published in this form in 1952 as B.10.
Chamber music
Dvořák composed fourteen string quartets, the most popular being the 12th, the American, Op. 96. He also composed two piano quintets, of which the 2nd, Op. 81, is better known. He left three string quintets, a terzetto for two violins and viola, two piano quartets, a string sextet, Op. 48, and four piano trios, including the Dumky, Op. 90.
Operas
Dvořák's critical acclaim as a composer of symphonies and concertos gave him a strong desire to write opera. Of all his operas, only Rusalka, Op. 114, and, to a much lesser extent, The Devil and Kate, Op. 112, are played on contemporary opera stages with any frequency outside the Czech Republic. This is attributable to their uneven invention and libretti, and perhaps also their staging requirements–The Jacobin, Armida, Vanda and Dimitrij need stages large enough to portray invading armies.
   There is speculation by Dvořák scholars such as Michael Beckerman that portions of his Symphony No. 9 "From the New World", notably the second movement, were adapted from studies for a never-written opera about Hiawatha. List of operas
Alfred (unpublished), 1870
King and Charcoal Burner (Král a uhlíř), 1871, recomposed 1874, revised 1887, Op.14
The Stubborn Lovers (Tvrdé palice), 1874, Op.17
Vanda, 1875, revised 1879 and 1883, Op.25
The Cunning Peasant (Šelma sedlák), 1877, Op.35
Dimitrij, 1881/1882, revised 1883, 1885, 1894/1895, Op.64
The Jacobin, 1887/1888, revised 1897, Op.84
The Devil and Kate (Čert a Káča), 1898/1889, Op.112
Rusalka, 1900, Op.114
Armida, 1902/1903, Op.115

Media
Media files with the music of the Cello concerto and the Symphony no. 9 can be found at their respective Wikipedia articles.


Notable students of Dvořák

Vítězslav Novák
Josef Suk
Will Marion Cook
William Arms Fisher
Henry T. BurleighFurther Information
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