Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvořák was born and raised in Nelahozeves near Prague. In the years 1853-1856, the young Antonín lived in Zlonice, where he was taken under the wings of a local cantor and organist Antonín Liehmann, who revealed his extraordinary musical talent (young Dvořák played the violin, piano, and the organ).

At the age of sixteen, he went to Prague to study organ school. He also played the viola in the orchestra of the Provisional Theater under Bedřich Smetana.

He soon began his composing career. His wife sent the compositions to the then most prominent figure in Romanticism, Johannes Brahms, who later recommended Dvořák as a composer to the Berlin publisher Simrock. Dvořák wrote the first series of Slavonic Dances for him in 1878, and thanks to excellent critical reception, he suddenly became famous all over the world. He also successfully performed as a conductor of his compositions.

In 1884, Dvořák was invited to London to conduct his Stabat Mater, a vocal-instrumental work composed after the death of one of his daughters. He is met with astonishing success and thus gains strong ties to the English music scene, where the excellent performances of choral singing ensembles partly motivate him to further compositional efforts in the field of vocal-instrumental compositions. His Requiem, first performed in 1891 in Birmingham under the composer's baton (the Czech premiere took place at the National Theater in Prague in April 1892), is the culmination of this activity and, together with Mozart, presents the most convincingly artistic compositions of its kind. On the basis of all his successes, he obtained a doctorate in Prague and Cambridge and became a professor at the Prague Conservatory, where he educated a number of important Czech composers, such as Vítězslav Novák and Josef Suk Sr. Josef Suk met and later married Dvořák's daughter Otilia and thus became his son-in-law.

In 1892, Dvořák was sent a letter from the United States. The founder of the American National Conservatory in New York, Jeanette Thurber, is trying to get him as the director of this institution. Dvořák hesitates at first but then accepts the offer. His Symphony No. 9 will become his opus magnum, and one of the greatest compositions of its kind in the entire history of music. Dvořák's stay in the United States in the years 1892 - 1895 also brings him numerous other honors and definitely world fame.

Antonín Dvořák wrote 9 symphonies, several symphonic poems, large instrumental compositions (Slavonic dances), vocal and vocal-instrumental compositions (Stabat Mater, St. Ludmila, Requiem, Te Deum), 5 concert overtures, a number of chamber compositions (the most famous is the string quartet F- major, called "American"), concerts (violin, cello, and piano), songs (Biblical songs), choirs, piano compositions (versions of Slavonic dances, later also orchestral versions), 10 operas (the most famous are Rusalka, Jakobín, Čert and Káča, Dimitrij and Armida).

Worshiped all over the world Dvořák died unexpectedly in Prague on May 1, 1904.