Dvorak: Symphony No. 1 / Legends Op. 59, Nos. 1-5

Description

Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)Symphony No.1 in C Minor (The Bells of Zlonice) Legends Op. 59, Nos. 1 -5 Antonin Dvorak was born in 1841, the son of a butcher andinnkeeper in the village of Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, in Bohemia, and some forty milesnorth of Prague. It was natural that he should follow the example of his father andgrandfather by learning the family trade, and to this end he left school at the age ofeleven. There is no reliable record of his competence in butchery, but his musicalabilities were early apparent, and in 1853 he was sent to lodge with an uncle in Zlonice,where he continued an apprenticeship started at home, learning German and improving hisknowledge of music, rudimentary skill in which he had already acquired at home and in thevillage band and church. Further study of German and of music at Kamenice, a town innorthern Bohemia, led to his admission, in 1857, to the Prague Organ School, from which hegraduated two years later.In the years that followed, Dvorak earned his living as aviola-player in a " band under the direction of Karel Komzak which was to form thenucleus of i the Provisional Theatre Orchestra, established in 1862. Four years laterSmetana was appointed conductor of the opera-house, where his Czech operas The Brandenburgers 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 with the award of a Ministryof Education stipendium by a committee in Vienna that included the critic Eduard Hanslickand Brahms. The following year Dvorak failed to win the award, but was successful in1877. His fourth application brought the personal interest of Hanslick and Brahms and aconnection with Simrock, the latter's publisher, who expressed a wish to publish theMoravian Duets and commissioned a set of Slavonic Daces for piano duet. These compositionswon particular popularity. There were visits to Germany and to England, where he wasalways received with greater enthusiasm than a Czech composer would ever at that time havewon in Vienna. The series of compositions that followed secured him an unassailableposition in Czech music and a place of honour in the larger world.Early in 1891 Dvorak became professor of composition at PragueConservatory. In the summer of the same year he was invited to become director of theNational Conservatory of Music in New York, a venture which, it was hoped, would lay thefoundations for American national music. The very Bohemian musical results of Dvorak'stime in America are well known. Here he wrote his NinthSymphony, From the New World, its themes influenced,