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AntonÃn Dvorák
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Antonín Leopold Dvorák ( or in English; September 8, 1841 – May 1, 1904) was a Czech composer of Romantic music, who employed the idioms and melodies of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. His works include operas, symphonic, choral and chamber music. His best-known works include his New World Symphony (particularly the second and fourth movements), as well as his Slavonic Dances, "American" String Quartet, and Cello Concerto in B minor.
ák was born on September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, near Prague (then Austrian Empire, today the Czech Republic), where he spent most of his life.
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Antonín Leopold Dvorák ( or in English; September 8, 1841 – May 1, 1904) was a Czech composer of Romantic music, who employed the idioms and melodies of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. His works include operas, symphonic, choral and chamber music. His best-known works include his New World Symphony (particularly the second and fourth movements), as well as his Slavonic Dances, "American" String Quartet, and Cello Concerto in B minor.
Biography
Early career
Dvorák 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 František Dvorák (1814-1894) was a butcher, innkeeper, and professional player of the zither. Dvorák'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. From 1857 to 1859 he studied music in Prague's only Organ School, 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 Bedrich Smetana. The need to supplement his income by teaching left Dvorák with limited free time, and in 1871 he gave up playing in the orchestra in order to compose. During this time, Dvorák fell in love with one of his pupils, Josefína Cermáková, and wrote a song cycle, Cypress Trees, for her. She married another man, however, and in 1873 Dvorák married her sister, Anna. They had nine children together.
At about this time Dvorák began to be recognized as a significant composer. He became organist at St. Adalbert's Church, Prague, and began a period of prolific composition. Dvorák 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 Dvorák's first set of Slavonic Dances. Published in 1878, these were an immediate success. Dvorák's Stabat Mater (1880) was performed abroad, and after a successful performance in London in 1883, Dvorák 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. Dvorák visited England nine times in total, he often conducted his own works there. In 1890, influenced by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, he also visited Russia, and conducted the orchestras in Moscow and in St. Petersburg. In 1891 Dvorák received an honorary degree from the University of Cambridge, and his Requiem premiered later that year in Birmingham at the Triennial Music Festival.
United States (1892–1895)
From 1892 to 1895, Dvorák was the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City, at a $15,000 annual salary. 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 Dvorák met with Harry Burleigh, one of the earliest African-American composers, his pupil. Burleigh introduced traditional American Spirituals to Dvorák at the latter's request.
In the winter and spring of 1893, while in New York, Dvorák 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, Dvorák wrote his Cello Concerto in B minor. However, problems with Mrs. Thurber about his salary, together with increasing recognition in Europe — he had 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.
Dvorák'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 Dvorák, however, a statue of him was erected in Stuyvesant Square.
Later career
During his final years, Dvorák concentrated on composing opera and chamber music. In 1896 he visited London for the last time to hear the premiere of his Cello Concerto in B minor. In 1897 his daughter married his pupil, the composer Josef Suk. Dvorák succeeded Antonín Bennewitz as director of the Conservatory in Prague from 1901 until his death from heart failure in 1904. His 60th birthday was celebrated as a national event. He is interred in the Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague, under his bust by Czech sculptor Ladislav Šaloun.
He left many unfinished works, including the early Cello Concerto in A major (see Concerti below).
Works
- See List of compositions by Antonín Dvorák by category, List of compositions by Antonín Dvorák by Burghauser number and :Category: Compositions by Antonín Dvorák
Dvorák wrote in a variety of forms: his nine symphonies generally stick to classical models that Beethoven would have recognised, but he also worked in the newly developed symphonic poem form and the influence of Richard Wagner is apparent in some works. Many of his works also show the influence of Czech folk music, both in terms of rhythms and melodic shapes; perhaps the best known examples are the two sets of Slavonic Dances. Dvorák also wrote operas (of which the best known is Rusalka); serenades for string orchestra and wind ensemble; chamber music (including a number of string quartets, and quintets); songs; choral music; and piano music.
Numbering
While a large number of Dvorák's works were given opus numbers, these did not always bear a logical relationship to the order in which they were either written or published. To achieve better sales, some publishers such as Simrock preferred to present budding composers as being well established, by giving some relatively early works much higher opus numbers than their chronological order would merit. In other cases, the same opus number was given to more than one of Dvorák's works. In yet other cases, a work was given as many as three different opus numbers by different publishers. His symphonies' numbering has also been confused: (a) they were initially numbered by order of publication, not composition; (b) the first four symphonies to be composed were published after the last five; and (c) the last five symphonies were not published in order of composition. This explains why, for example, the New World Symphony was originally published as No. 5, was later known as No. 8, and definitively renumbered as No. 9 in the critical editions published in the 1950s.
The order of publication of the symphonies was:
- No. 6 (1881) – published as "No. 1", although Dvorák called it "No. 5"
- No. 7 (1885) – published as "No. 2", although Dvorák called it "No. 6"
- No. 5 (1888) – published as "No. 3, Op. 76", although Dvorák called it "No. 4, Op. 24" on the score
- No. 8 (1890) – published as "No. 4", although Dvorák called it "No. 7"
- No. 9 (1894) – published as "No. 5", although Dvorák called it "No. 8"
- No. 3 (1912)
- No. 4 (1912)
- No. 2 (1959)
- No. 1 (1961).
The symphonies were first performed in a different order again:
- No. 3 (1874)
- No. 5 (1879)
- No. 6 (1881)
- No. 7 (1885)
- No. 2 (1888)
- No. 8 (1890)
- No. 4 (1892)
- No. 9 (1893)
- No. 1 (1936).
All of Dvorák's works were chronologically catalogued by Jarmil Burghauser in Antonín Dvorák. Thematic Catalogue. Bibliography. Survey of Life and Work (Export Artia, Prague, 1960). As an example, in the Burghauser catalogue, the New World Symphony, Op. 95 is B.178. Scholars today often refer to Dvorák's works by their B numbers (for Burghauser), although references to the traditional opus numbers are still common, in part because the opus numbers have historical continuity with earlier scores and printed programs. The opus numbers are still more likely to appear in printed programs for performances.
Symphonies
During Dvorák's life, only five of his symphonies were widely known. The first published was his sixth, dedicated to Hans Richter. After Dvorák's death, research uncovered four unpublished symphonies, of which the manuscript of the first had even been lost to the composer himself. This led to an unclear situation in which the New World Symphony has alternately been called the 5th, 8th and 9th. This article uses the modern numbering system, according to the order in which they were written.
Symphony No. 1 in C minor was written when Dvorák was 24 years old. Later subtitled The Bells of Zlonice after a village in Dvorák's native Bohemia, it shows inexperience but also genius with its many attractive qualities. It has many formal similarities with Beethoven's 5th Symphony (for example, the movements follow the same keys: C minor, A flat major, C minor, C major), yet in harmony and instrumentation, Dvorák's First follows the style of Franz Schubert. (Some material from this symphony was reused in the Silhouettes, Opus 8, for piano solo.)
Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 4, still takes Beethoven as a model, though this time in a brighter, more pastoral light.
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 10, clearly shows the sudden and profound impact of Dvorák's recent acquaintance with the music of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt; there is no scherzo. (A portion of the slow movement was reused in the sixth of the Legends, Opus 59, for piano duet or orchestra.)
Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 13, still shows a strong influence of Wagner, particularly the second movement, which is reminiscent of the overture to Tannhäuser. In contrast, the scherzo is strongly Czech in character.
Symphony No. 5 in F major, Op. 76, and Symphony No. 6 in D major, Op. 60, are largely pastoral in nature, and brush away nearly all the last traces of Wagnerian style. The Sixth shows a very strong resemblance to the Symphony No. 2 of Brahms, particularly in the outer movements, though this similarity is belied by the third-movement furiant, a vivid Czech dance.
Symphony No. 7 in D minor of 1885, Op. 70, is sometimes reckoned to exhibit more formal tautness and greater intensity than the more famous 9th Symphony. There is emotional torment in the Seventh that may reflect personal troubles: around this time, Dvorák was struggling to have his Czech operas accepted in Vienna, feeling pressure to write operas in German, and arguing with his publisher. His sketches show that the Seventh cost him much hard work and soul-searching.
Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88, is, in contrast with the Seventh, characterized by a warmer and more optimistic tone. Karl Schumann (in booklet notes for a recording of all the symphonies by Rafael Kubelík) compares it to the works of Gustav Mahler. As with the Seventh, some feel the Eighth is the best of the symphonies. That some critics feel it necessary to promote a symphony as "better than the Ninth" shows how the immense popularity of the Ninth has overshadowed the earlier works.
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, may be better known by its subtitle, From the New World, and is also called the New World Symphony. Dvorák wrote it between January and May 1893, while he was in New York. At the time of its first performance, he claimed that he used elements from American music such as spirituals and Native American music in this work, but he later denied this. The first movement has a solo flute passage reminiscent of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", and one of his students later reported that the second movement depicted, programmatically, the sobbing of Hiawatha. The second movement was so reminiscent of a negro spiritual that William Arms Fisher wrote lyrics for it and called it "Goin' Home". Dvorák was interested in indigenous American music, but in an article published in the New York Herald on December 15, 1893, he wrote, "[In the 9th symphony] I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the Indian music." Neil Armstrong took a recording of the New World Symphony to the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, the first Moon landing, in 1969.
Many conductors have recorded cycles of the symphonies, including István Kertész, Rafael Kubelík, Otmar Suitner, Libor Pešek, Zdenek Mácal, Václav Neumann, Witold Rowicki, and Neeme Järvi.
Symphonic poems
Dvorák's symphonic poems (tone poems) are among his most original symphonic works. He wrote five symphonic poems, all in 1896-1897, and they have 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 Dvorák's devising and is believed to be autobiographical.
Choral works
The greatest of Dvorák's choral works are his Requiem, Op. 89, his Te Deum, his Mass in D major, and his Stabat Mater, the longest extant setting of that work. The recording of the Requiem by conductor Karel Ancerl 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".
Concerti
Music critic Harold C. Schonberg expressed common critical opinion when he wrote that Dvorák 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". 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 Dvorák composed and orchestrated, and it is perhaps the least known of those three. Dvorák 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 Cech, and the Czech pianist Karel Slavkovský as soloist. As Dvorák wrote: "I see I am unable to write a Concerto for a virtuoso; I must think of other things." Instead, what Dvorák 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 Dvorák'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 Dvorák 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 objected to Dvorák's abrupt truncation of the first movement's orchestral tutti, and he also did not approve its truncated recapitulation and its leading directly to the slow movement. He never played the piece. The concerto was premiered in 1883 in Prague by the violinist František Ondrícek, who also gave its first performances in Vienna and London.
The Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B minor, Op. 104 was the last composed of Dvorák'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 Dvorák always refused, stating that the cello was a fine orchestral instrument but completely insufficient for a solo concerto.
Dvorák 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. Dvorák attended at least two performances of Victor Herbert's cello concerto and was inspired to fulfill Wihan's request for a cello concerto. Dvorák'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 would have written one long ago!"
Over thirty years earlier in 1865, Dvorák had composed a Cello Concerto in A major, but with accompaniment by piano rather than orchestra. It is believed Dvorák 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
Dvorák 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 including the Double Bass quintet, Op. 77, a terzetto for two violins and viola, two piano quartets, a string sextet, Op. 48, and four piano trios, including the Piano Trio No. 4 (subtitled Dumky), Op. 90. He also wrote a set of Bagatelles, Op. 47, for the unusual instrumentation of two violins, viola, and harmonium.
Operas
Dvorák'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.
One of his more frequently-performed arias from Rusalka is "Mesícku na nebi hlubokém" (or, "Song to the Moon").
There is speculation by Dvorák 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 uhlír), 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 (Cert a Káca), 1898/1889, Op.112
- Rusalka, 1900, Op.114
- Armida, 1902/1903, Op.115
Notable students of Dvorák
Media
Recordings of the Cello concerto, the Serenade for Strings, Humoresque no. 7, and the Symphony no. 9 can be found at their respective articles.
See also
- Category: Compositions by Antonín Dvorák
External links
Recordings
- Guided listening on Dvorák's most famous works can be found in the
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- Video Cigánské melodie
- , on Dvorák's predictions about the future of American music
- Kunst der Fuge:
Music scores
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