Antonin Dvorak, b.September 8, 1841, d.May 1, 1904.

This biography for young adults, one of the series published by Julian Messner in 1950’s, begins with a delightful picture of composer Antonin Dvorak’s childhood in rural Bohemia (Czech Republic). The author paints a word picture of the village where Dvorak grew up, the son of a poor butcher and innkeeper father, but in a family and culture that highly valued music and dance and music-making. The story manages to incorporate a great deal of Czech history and some lovely folktales, and all in all the first third or even half of the book is a wonderful introduction to not only the composer and his music but also nineteenth century musical trends, Bohemian folk tales, the city of Prague, and the political difficulties of Bohemia under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

At about the halfway point, when as a reader I was already hooked, the narrative slowly devolved into a list of the places Dvorak went and the musical pieces he composed. Maybe the travel and the compositions were his life after he became famous. Nevertheless, I was impelled to read on because the first part was so interesting, and I quickly looked up some of Dvorak’s music on YouTube and played it as I read. Some of the most interesting tidbits that I gleaned:

1. Dvorak was achingly poor as a youth, the very picture of the impoverished artist. He had to wait eight years and pull himself up out of poverty in order to finally marry his fiancé. Eight years is a long engagement. Dvorak was 32 years old when he married his 19 year old bride. (Whoops! I guess there was more than one reason they had to wait eight years to get married. He certainly couldn’t have married her when she was eleven.)

2. Antonin and Anna Dvorak were married in 1873; by 1876 they had three children. In the spring of 1876 their eldest daughter died after a brief illness. In September their son died, and their second daughter died in October. Now, that’s a tragic story.

3. Anna and Antonin went on to have six more children, all of whom survived childhood and thrived. The oldest daughter, Otilie, became a composer like her father.

4. Dvorak wrote his famous New World Symphony when he was in the New York under contract as Director of the National Academy of Music, a school that famously “enrolled poor students without charge and . . . welcomed members of the Negro race.” The New World Symphony is said to be greatly influenced by African American spirituals, work songs, and folk music that Dvorak was exposed to and admired while he was in the United States.

5. Dvorak loved birds. He composed many operas, symphonies, symphonic poems, and choral works. His favorite instrument was the viola.

6. Dvorak died in 1904. “In the dreadful years 1939-1945 Dvorak, along with Smetana and other native composers, was declared an outlaw by the Nazi conquerors. It was a crime to play his music in Bohemia. In 1941, the year of Dvorak’s centenary, his own Czech people were forbidden to play a bar of his music.”

I’m determined now to listen to more Dvorak. Any suggestions of specific pieces I should look for?