Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)

Without question, Antonín Dvořák is the greatest Czech of all times. He managed to do what few great artists were able to experience: during his lifetime he was celebrated in continental Europe, in England and the United States; his works even reached far away Australia.

Dvořák spent many days of his life travelling. He conducted in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Russia, visited England nine times (1884-1896) and spent three years in the United States as the director of The National Conservatory of Music of America in New York (1892-1895). In his international success he perceived not just acclaim for his creative genius, but also for his country: “Of all things, I have already become convinced of the fact that a new and, God willing, a happier period will commence for me here in England, a period that I hope will bear fine fruit for Czech art,” Dvořák wrote from his first trip to England to his publisher in Prague, Velebín Urbánek, on 14 March 1884. Yet he was not satisfied with just making this statement – he tried to help this come true. At international concert societies and among his publishers, he promoted the works of Josef Suk, Zdeněk Fibich, Karel Bendl and other Czech composers. He was always proud to proclaim he was Czech and used every opportunity to make note of his country’s celebrated past and present: “Twenty years ago we Slavs were nothing; now we feel our national life once more awakening, and who knows but that the glorious times may come back which five centuries ago were ours, when all Europe looked up to the powerful Czechs, the Slavs, the Bohemians, to whom I, too, belong, and to whom I am proud to belong," Dvořák explained in 1886 in an interview with the prestigious English evening newspaper Pall Mall Gazette.

Antonín Dvořák left us with an extensive oevre of compositions. His chamber music enjoyed the greatest popularity during his lifetime; in this regard one should understand that his general publisher in Berlin, Fritz Simrock, constantly urged, or all but forced Dvořák to compose chamber music pieces that sold well and were thus a reliable source of income for the publishing company. Of Dvořák’s nine symphonies, the final four had an assured place on Euopean and American concert stages – due in part to dedicated admirers of Dvořák’s work, great conductors at the time: Hans Richter, Hans von Bülow and Anton Seidl. English music festivals ensured that oratory and cantata pieces were presented. Dvořák wrote the cantata The Specter's Bride, Op.69, the oratorio Saint Ludmila, Op.71 and Requiem, Op.89 based on direct orders from England, and thus thanks to England became the founder of Czech oratoria. It was the international response for Dvořák’s work that provided the impulse for the development of oratoria in Bohemia (Zdeněk Fibich, Leoš Janáček, Josef Bohuslav Foerster, Josef Suk, Bohuslav Martinů and others continued his legacy).

As a composer, Antonín Dvořák was very lucky to have exceptionally talented Czech and international performers who also became passionate promoters of his music, the most significant including Hans Richter, Hans von Büllow, August Manns, Sándor Erkel, Henry Joseph Wood, Gustav Mahler, Charles Lamoureux, Edouard Colonne, Theodore Thomas, Leoš Janáček, Oskar Nedbal and Karel Kovařovic, violinists Pablo de Sarasate, Joseph Joachim, Henri Marteau and František Ondříček, cellists Jean Becker and Robert Hausmann, Vienna State Opera soloist Gustav Walter (tenor), and chamber ensembles such as the Hellmesberger, Joachim, Florentine or Bohemian Quartets. The list of his suuporters is topped by German composer Johannes Brahms who, in a letter to his Berlin-based publisher Fritz Simrock dated 12 December 1877, recommended issuing the cycle of Moravian Duets, Op.29 a 32; this launched Dvořák’s music on the path to a European audience. "I am thankful to Brahms for all of my present fortune,” Dvořák wrote to major German critic Eduard Hanslick in a letter from 18 June 1889. From their very first meeting, a firm friendship was formed between the two composers that was filled with mutual respect and admiration.

Despite all his efforts and the efforts of his friends and admirers, particularly the noted Czech politician František Ladislav Rieger who had important international contacts, the only area in which Dvořák failed to be an international success was opera – even though there were certain indications that success would come. The opera The Cunning Peasant, Op.37, was staged in Dresden (1882), Hamburg (1883) and Vienna (1885); when the composer made his first trip to England, the director of the Carl Rosa Opera Company sought out the score Dmitrij; and Rusalka, Op.114 was performed as part of the Vienna Court Opera§s programme for three years thanks to the initiative of the opera house director, composer and conductor Gustav Mahler. Yet Dvořák’s dream – to also be recognized beyond the borders of his own country as an opera composer – remained unfulfilled.

In the final six years of his life, Dvořák consistently rejected international orders for more oratoria and symphonies; he was no longer attracted to travel – not to England and certainly not to the United States, where New York Conservatory President Jeannette Thurber repeatedly invited him. He considered this chapter of composing and his life to be definitively closed. He fully dedicated himself to work he wanted to use to complete his musical legacy – opera. As he emphasised in a newspaper interview at the time, “Opera is the most necessary thing for the nation.” He composed three great operas: The Devil and Kate, Op.112; Rusalka, Op.114; and Armida, Op.115.

In spite of all of the fame and numerous marks of recognition he received from domestic and international art institutes and associations, he remained a humble man dedicated to his family, work and country. In Czech music circles, Dvořák was viewed as a sort of “ambassador” of the Czech lands abroad. Antonín Dvořák thoroughly fulfilled this mission.

» Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
» The Works of Antonín Dvořák (selection)

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