The Bohemian music
for popularity by a patriotic cantata “Dědicové Bílé Hory” (The Heirs of the White Mountain). In 1877 his “Slovanské tance” (Slavonic Dances) took the public by storm. These piano-forte compositions, full of glittering melody and rhythm, ravished even Germany and England. On March 10, 1883, the London Musical Society performed Dvořák’s “Stabat Mater.” The work created a veritable sensation, which was intensified by a repetition under the direction of the composer himself three days later, and a performance at the Worcester festival in 1884. Dvořák now became the hero of the English choral festivals. In 1885 he composed “Svatební košile” (The Spectre’s Bride) for Birmingham, in 1886 “St. Ludmila” for Leeds, and in 1891 the “Requiem” for Birmingham. The same year on his fiftieth birthday the University of Cambridge in England gave him the title of a doctor of music and the Bohemian University in Prague the honorary title of doctor of philosophy.
In 1892 Dvořák came to America for three years as head of the National Conservatory in New York. Of ten works written in America, the first was the immortal Fifth Symphony in E minor, “Z Nového Světa” (From the New World) op. 95 (sketched from January 10 to May 25 in New York, first performance at New York Music Hall, December 16, 1893). There was a long controversy here in America, whether Dvořák used in the themes of the symphony some real Negro or Indian music. He settled it himself in his letter to the Bohemian composer and conductor Oskar Nedbal in February 1900: “I am sending you Kretschmar’s analysis of my symphony, but omit that nonsense that I have used Indian and American motives, because that is a lie. I tried only to write the themes in the spirit of those American melodies.” So all in the symphony is Dvořák’s original music. The work is of rare beauty, Dvořák’s intention being to give America the best specimen of his talent. The other American compositions were written partly at Spillville, Ia., where Dvořák spent his summer vacations with his family among the Bohemian population of that village (Quartet in F major, op. 96, and Quintet in E flat major, op. 97, the climax of Dvořák’s chamber music works), partly in New
