Dvorak: Symphonies Nos. 3 And 6

Description

Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)Symphony No.3 in E Flat Major, Op. 10 Symphony No. 6 in D Major, Op. 60Antonin Dvorak was born in 1841, theson of a village butcher and innkeeper in the village of Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, inBohemia, and some forty miles north of Prague. It was natural that he should follow theexample of his father and grandfather by learning the family trade, and to this end heleft school at the age of eleven. There is no reliable record of his competence inbutchery, but his musical abilities were early apparent, and in 1853 he was sent to lodgewith an uncle in Zlonice, where he continued an apprenticeship started at home, learningGerman and improving his knowledge of music, rudimentary skill in which he had alreadyacquired at home and in the village band and church. Further study of German and of musicat Kamenice, a town in northern Bohemia, led to his admission, in 1857, to the PragueOrgan School, from which he graduated two years later.In the years that followed, Dvorakearned his living as a viola-player in a band under the direction of Karel Komzak whichwas to form the nucleus of the Provisional Theatre Orchestra, established in 1862. Fouryears later Smetana was appointed conductor of the opera-house, where his Czech operas TheBrandenburgers in Bohemia and The Bartered Bride had already been performed. It wasnot until 1871 that Dvorak resigned from the theatre orchestra, to devote more time tocomposition, as his music began to draw some favourable local attention. Two years laterhe married and early in 1874 became organist of the church of St. Adalbert. During thisperiod he continued to support himself by private teaching, while busy on a series ofcompositions that gradually became known to a wider circle. Further recognition came in 1875 withthe award of a Ministry of Education stipendium by a committee in Vienna that included thecritic Eduard Hanslick and Brahms. The following year Dvorak failed to win the award, butwas successful in 1877. His fourth application brought the personal interest of Hanslickand Brahms and a connection with Simrock, the latter's publisher, who expressed a wish topublish the Moravian Duets and commissioned a set of Slavonic Dances for piano duet. Thesecompositions won particular popularity. There were visits to Germany and to England, wherehe was always received with greater enthusiasm than a Czech composer would ever at thattime have won in Vienna. The series of compositions that followed secured him anunassailable position in Czech music and a place of honour in the larger world.Early in 1891 Dvorak became professorof composition at Prague Conservatory. In the summer of the same year he was invited tobecome director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, a venture which, it washoped, would lay the foundations for American national music. The very Bohemian musicalresults of Dvorak's time in America are well known. Here he wrote his Ninth Symphony, Fromthe New World, its themes influenced