Antonin Dvorak in America
Czech Composer from Bohemia Spent the 1890s in New York
Czech composer Anton Dvorak spent several years in New York City in the 1890s, but he was always homesick and longed for the fields and forests of Bohemia.
Anton Dvorak was asked to come to New York City in 1892 to be the new Director of the National Conservatory of Music. Society matron Jeannette Thurber (her husband, a wealthy grocery merchant, had endowed the school), was determined to bring a celebrated 'name' in music as the new director. After much deliberation, Dvorak agreed to come for a specified time.
The National Conservatory was situated at 128 East 17th Street in New York City and had several highly qualified teachers on its faculty, including pianists Adele Margolies and Rafael Joseffy, violinist Leopold Lichtenberg, cellist Victor Herbert and composer Rubin Goldmark. The conservatory was modeled on the the Paris Conservatoire de Music, and offered a three-year full time course of study for students under the age of twenty-four. The school also had an open admissions policy and welcomed handicapped, black and other minority students.
Arriving in America
Dvorak, along with his wife and two of their six children, arrived in New York City on September 26, 1892 and took over his duties which included teaching composition and orchestration to the most talented students as well as conducting the orchestra. Dvorak was also asked to conduct six concerts of his own compositions during the academic year. His appointment was greeted with much interest in the music circles of the city and was just what Jeannette desired. Dvorak's mandate, in his own words, was to "discover what young Americans had in them, and to help them express it."
Dvorak's Students included Rubin Goldmark (who later taught George Gershwin briefly), Harvey Worthington Loomis, Harry Rowe Shelley and Edwin Franko Goldman, all of whom eventually made meaningful contributions to musical life and literature. Dvorak, himself, composed the sublime Cello Concerto and the Symphony in e minor (' From the New World' ) while in America. While summering at the Czech community of Spillville, Iowa, Dvorak composed the String Quartet in F and the String Quartet in E Flat, both of which received the appelation 'American.'
Return to Europe
In spite of the success Dvorak enjoyed while in New York, he still suffered from the never ending nostalgia for his homeland. In April of 1895 he packed his musical compositions and personal effects and the family sailed, on April 16, back to Europe. They sailed on the S.S.Saale, the same ship that had brought them to America a few years earlier.Although Dvorak was always homesick for his native land and had a rather short interval in the new country, the works he composed in American will live on forever in the classical repertoire.
For further reading about Czech musicians, read Rudolf Firkusny.
Sources
Signature Magazine, Winter 1997, Volume 2, Number 1, Jeannette Thurber, by Karen Shaffer and Anya Laurence
Dvorak, by Neil Butterworth, Omnibus Press, London, 1980
