Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) was born in a village near Prague, the son of an innkeeper and butcher who expected him to follow the trade. He trained as a violist and composer instead, spent years scraping a living in Prague's orchestra pits, and didn't achieve international fame until Brahms championed his work in the 1870s. Brahms's recommendation got Dvořák's Slavic Dances published and launched a career that would take him to London, Moscow, and New York.

He was the great folk melodist of the late 19th century, and the folk wasn't a costume he put on — it was the material he thought in. His nine symphonies, his concertos (cello, violin, piano), his chamber music, and his operas all draw on Bohemian folk rhythms and harmonic idioms, not as quotation but as deep grammar. The New World Symphony (No. 9, 1893), written during his tenure as director of the National Conservatory in New York, weaves American Black spiritual music into the same folk framework — the attempt is imperfect but sincere, and the result is his most popular symphony.

Dvořák taught at the Prague Conservatory and later, in New York, taught Harry Burleigh — Burleigh was Black and introduced Dvořák to the spirituals that influenced the New World Symphony. Dvořák was a deeply religious man, and his later works — particularly the Cello Concerto in B minor, the String Quartet No. 12 (American), and the Dumky Trio — have a warmth and intimacy that suggests a man at peace with his gift.

StyleLate Romantic folk-inflected lyricism. Bohemian rhythms, wide-spanned melodies, orchestral color that draws on the outdoors. Natural rather than intellectual; emotional without being confessional.

Listen: Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104. Then the Slavonic Dances (orchestral versions), then the String Quintet in G major, Op. 77 — the slow movement alone is worth it.