Antonín Dvorák was one of the biggest composers of his time.
But he would have given up all his symphonies
if he could have been the one to invent the locomotive.
He said so himself.
Dvorák had a great deal of passion for trains and technology.
You can hear that wonder, belief in the future
and love of life in his beautiful music.
Antonín Dvorák The optimistic trainspotter
Dvorák was a master composer of catchy and optimistic melodies,
melodies that invoke entire worlds. Take his cello concerto, for example.
Or the finale of his ninth symphony.
Or his violin concerto.
Dvorák's music has certainly left its mark.
But how did it all begin?
Antonín Dvorák was born in 1841,
the eldest son in a butcher's family.
But he would never become a butcher.
He was bursting with musical talent.
His music teacher, Antonín Liehmann, had one message for Dvorák's father:
Young Antonín must and will become a professional musician.
At age 16, he headed to the big city, Prague,
to study at the organ school there.
Two years later, Dvorák graduated and had to start working right away.
His dad's business was struggling. His allowance was limited.
So, he worked as a violin player in restaurants and cafés,
and at parties, with a small orchestra, which gained renown.
Thanks to that, Dvorák found a position at the Prague theater.
For nine years, he would play violin there,
playing the biggest operas,
and playing under famous conductors, like Richard Wagner
and his compatriot Bedrich Smetana.
All those operas inspired Dvorák to begin composing himself.
He was a perfectionist, quick to discard things and start over.
But when he was 19, he dared to reveal one of his pieces,
his first string quartet.
String Quartet No. 1- 1862
His first symphony and his first opera, Alfred, soon followed.
In 1874, at 33 years of age,
Dvorák, as a composer, was still unknown abroad.
He wanted to change that. So, what did he do?
He competed in the Austrian State Prize for Composition.
And guess what? He won.
He competed again in 1877 and won again,
because everyone was ecstatic about his Moravian Duets.
I understand why.
Johannes Brahms sat on the jury,
and he was greatly impressed by Dvorák.
Brahms put Dvorák in touch with his publisher, Fritz Simrock.
The publisher immediately put Dvorák to work
composing something in Brahms's Hungarian style, namely...
And Dvorák presented the new score:
not the Hungarian, but the Slavonic Dances.
It was a bullseye.
People flooded German music stores, as everyone wanted the Dances
by the as yet undiscovered Czech composer.
Dvorák's career was taking off, but his private life was troubled.
Dvorák lost three children in a short space of time.
Music spontaneously flowed onto the page,
in a very serene and symbolic piece: Stabat Mater.
Of course, it's a sad story, but an impressive one too,
because Stabat Mater was Dvorák's breakthrough in London.
He conducted in the Royal Albert Hall
and wrote a few more gems, like his seventh symphony.
And an eerily beautiful requiem.
Dvorák also had merchandizing.
You could buy cigarettes with his face on the pack
or even Dvorák walking sticks.
So, his international career had begun.
Dvorák was the man with a love of life and optimism,
who believed in the future.
Not just the future of music, but of technological advances.
They fascinated him immensely.
That showed in his hobby: Dvorák was a trainspotter.
His obsession went so far as to cause him to take note
of which trains went through Prague's station.
Not just which train, but also the time of day and number of cars.
Dvorák looked ahead to the future, but he also looked back.
In Dvorák's time, it was fashionable to incorporate Gypsy music
and folk elements in your score,
to contribute to your country's culture.
Dvorák did it, too. For example, listen to his Gypsy Songs.
Gypsy Songs - 1880
In that way, Dvorák joined the Czech trend toward nationalism at the time.
Czechs were searching
for a new linguistic, cultural and historical identity.
Czech music was embodied by three musicians:
Leos Janácek,
Bedrich Smetana
and Antonín Dvorák.
Dvorák was invaluable in helping shape the new Czech nationalism.
He took the idea of believing in the future
without forgetting your roots to the U.S.
Dvorák went to the U.S. because of Jeanette Thurber,
a wealthy American who wanted to invest in music.
She wanted to set up a new conservatory in New York,
for men and women, black and white alike.
She asked Dvorák to be the director.
Dvorák had but one task in the United States:
contributing to American music culture.
Dvorák had only one solution for it:
using Afro-American melodies and Native American music.
You can hear that in his ninth symphony,
which is fittingly called From the New World.
He lived well in the U.S.
He had a very nice house and earned 15,000 dollars a year.
He woke up at 6:00 every morning and went for a walk in Central Park
or to the port, where he was more a boatspotter than a trainspotter.
He had to work three hours a day, six days a week,
and he got four months of vacation each year.
In the USA, Dvorák composed beautiful music. His ninth symphony.
Symphony No. 9- 1893
In the town of Spillville, home to many Czech immigrants,
he wrote the beautiful "American" string quartet in just a few days.
American- 1893
His cello concerto also comes from the U.S.
He got his inspiration for it from Niagara Falls.
He saw them and said:
Good God, this will be a symphony in B minor.
But he went with a cello concerto.
Cello concerto - 1894
But the American dream would come to an end
for three reasons:
Jeanette Thurber, his patroness, ran out of money,
Dvorák was homesick for Bohemia
and Europe wanted Dvorák back.
On April 27, 1895,
Dvorák returned to his heart and soul: his Czech homeland.
Back home in Prague after his U.S. sojourn,
Dvorák began focusing on chamber music and operas.
One opera he wrote then is perhaps one of his most famous:
Rusalka.
Think of that beautiful aria, Song to the Moon.
After Symphony No. 9, Dvorák began working differently
with the symphony orchestra, now composing symphonic poems.
One of his symphonic poems was called The Wild Dove.
It's about a wild dove.
Apart from being a trainspotter, Dvorák was also a pigeon fancier.
The Wild Dove- 1896
But on May 1, 1904, he reached the end of the line.
After a Sunday lunch, Dvorák uttered the prophetic words:
I feel a bit dizzy. I'm going to lie down.
And Dvorák never got up again.
Prague mourned his death.
The National Theatre was draped in black.
A death mask was made, as well as a mold of his right hand,
with which he wrote so much lovely music.
Dvorák was incredibly important to Czech culture
and was loved by all.
It showed at his funeral. Thousands attended.
His coffin was driven through town in a gold carriage with six horses.
Everyone was there. From students with banners
showing titles of Dvorák's songs,
to the greatest Czech cultural figures.
His coffin had only one floral wreath, bearing these words:
To a beloved husband and loving father.
Klara Stay amazed.
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