Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904), next to Smetana and Janacek the most important exponent of specifically Czech music, now ranks (also in general) as one of the most popular composers of the nineteenth century. The son of a butcher-innkeeper in the Bohemian town of Nelahozeves (Mühlhausen) near Kralup, he first became known in his homeland for his patriotic hymn "The Heirs of the White Mountain" for chorus and orchestra, op.30, that he wrote in 1872. His road out into the world was opened by a commission consisting of Johannes Brahms, Eduard Hanslick and Johann von Herbeck, that selected him for an Austrian government stipend. Brahms, who was seven years the elder, took a friendly interest in his younger colleague whose eminent talent he had recognized and had come to admire. (Brahms: "That fellow has more ideas than all of us together. Every other composer could cull main themes from what he throws away.") Brahms recommended Dvo"rák to his Berlin publisher, Simrock, who later became Dvo"rák's chief publisher though he was obstinate and at first quite difficult. International fame came to Dvo"rák as a composer and – beginning in 1884 – as conductor of his own works mainly through his sensational successes in England (he went there for lengthy sojourns a total of nine times) and in the United States (two long visits spent in teaching and composing). His success was sparked chiefly by a sacred work, his Stabat Mater that was written in 1876 (Carus 27.293/03). Right until his late period, church music was never missing from the list of his important compositions: the symphonic poems, the operas (among them "Rusalka"), the symphonies, the string quartets and other chamber music works, the oratorio "St. Ludmila" - and the Slavonic Dances op.46 and op.72. To the Stabat Mater op.58 (1876/77) mentioned above, he added the "149th Psalm" op.79 (1879/87), the Requiem op.89 (1890) (Carus 27.323) and the Te Deum op.103 (1892) (Carus 27.189).