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Antonin Dvorak music biography continued...

in the small Bohemian village of Nelahozeves, near Prague (then Austrian Empire, today the Czech Republic) to a father who was an inn-keeper, butcher and professional player of the zither. His early musical training was followed by employment for some years as a violist, for a time under Smetana, and then, with the positive encouragement of Brahms, by a life primarily devoted to composition. Dvorak won recognition abroad and rather more grudging acceptance in Vienna. Between 1892 and 1895 he spent some time in the United States as director of the new National Conservatory, a period that brought compositions that combine American and Bohemian influence. At home again he was much honored, resisting invitations from Brahms to move to Vienna in favor of a simple life in his own country. During his final years, Dvorak's compositional work centered on opera and chamber music. In 1896 he visited London for the last time to hear the premiere of his Cello Concerto in B minor. Dvorak was director of the Conservatory in Prague from 1901 until his death in 1904. His 60th birthday was celebrated as a national event. He is interred in the Vysehrad cemetery in Prague, under his bust by Czech sculptor Ladislav Saloun.
Dvorak wrote nine symphonies, of which the best known must be the Symphony no. 9, From the New World, written in 1893 and first performed in New York in the same year. This New World Symphony derived some inspiration from a Czech translation of Longfellow's poem Hiawatha. Dvorak also left fourteen string quartets, of which the best known is the so-called American Quartet, no. 12 in F Major, written in 1893, the year of the Symphony from the New World. The composition of Quartets Nos. 13 and 14, in 1895, seems to have taken place over the same period. In addition, Dvorak's output consisted of several piano pieces, operas and songs. Say classical music aficionados, "Dvorak's music is a particularly happy result of the major influences on his art—Wagner, Brahms and folk music—and his felicitous orchestration is an art that conceals art." For many, this art will always endure.