DVORAK, ANTON (jvor'zhahk) (1841-1904), Bohemian musical composer born at Nelahozeves (otherwise Miihlhausen) in Bohemia on Sept. 8, 1841, was the son of Frantisek Dvorak, a small publican and village butcher. At the door of his father's inn Dvorak first appeared as a practical musician, taking his place among the fiddlers who scraped out their "f uriants" and other wild dances for the benefit of the holiday-making local beaux and belles. At the village school he learnt from Josef Spitz both to sing and to play the violin, with so much effect that soon he was able to assist in the parish church services. At 12 years old he was sent by his father to Zlonic, near Schlan, to an uncle, with whom he lived while passing through the higher grade classes at school. Here, too, he was fortunate enough to find a valuable friend in A. Liehmann, organist and chief musician of the little town, a competent musician, who instructed the boy in elementary theory, organ and pianoforte playing. The theory studies, however, could not long be continued, since Liehmann soon acknowledged in his own dialect that the boy was extra ordinarily full of promise ("Aus Tonda, dem Sappermentsbuben 'mal 'was werden konnte"), at the same time realizing that he could not do much to assist. But Dvorak soon left Zlonic for Bohmisch-Kamnitz, where he learnt German and advanced his musical studies under Hancke. A year later he was summoned to return to Zlonic to assist his father, who had set up in business there. But his craving for a musical career was not to be checked, and after considerable trouble, his father's consent was obtained to his settling in Prague to devote himself entirely to the study of music.
In Oct. 1857 Dvorak entered the organ-school of the Gesell scha f t der Kirchenmusik, where he worked for three years. The small financial aid his father was at first able to lend soon ceased, and after being in Prague but a very few months Dvorak found himself practically thrown on his own resources. By playing the viola in a private orchestra and in various inns of the town he succeeded in obtaining a precarious livelihood. On the opening in 1862 of the Bohemian Interimstheater, Dvorak, with part of this band, formed the nucleus of the theatrical orchestra, and remained connected with it for 11 years, when he became organist of the church of St. Adalbert. At this time his small stipend was augmented slightly by the fees of a few pupils, though the priva tions suffered by him and his wife (for he had recently married) must have been great. But in spite of financial worry and of the amount of time he had to devote to his professional duties and private pupils, Dvorak found leisure not only for his own studies of the classics, but also to compose. His work, like his daily life, was beset with difficulties, for he had not the means to provide himself with sufficient music-paper, much less to hire a piano forte; and it is possible that several of his important early works would never have been written had it not been for the generosity of Karel Bendl, the composer, who helped him in many ways.
Dvorak himself said afterwards that he retained no recollection of much that he then composed. In and about 1864 two sym phonies, a host of songs, some chamber-music, and an entire opera, Alfred, lay unheard in his desk. The libretto of this opera was made up from materials found in an old almanac. Most of these works were burnt long ago. In 1873 he made his first bid for popularity by his patriotic hymn Die Erben des weissen Berges (published many years later as op. 3o). Its reception was enthusiastic, and Dvorak's subsequent works were eagerly awaited and warmly received on production. In 1874 his opera Konig and Kohler resulted in a fiasco at Prague, owing to its mixture of styles. Nothing daunted, Dvoiak recomposed the whole work in three months. In 1875, on the recommendation of Brahms and Hanslick, he obtained a stipend from the Kultus Ministerium at Vienna, which freed him from care and enabled him to indulge in composition to his heart's content. Following on this success came a commission in 1877 for a series of Slavonic dances, which took the public by storm. Immediately composi tions, old and new, began to pour from the publisher. English sympathy was entirely won by the Stabat Mater in 1883, and increased by the symphonies which succeeded it, and the can tata The Spectre's Bride, based on K. J. Erben's elaboration of the Bohemian version of the saga treated in Burger's Leonore. The favourable impression produced by these works was some what lessened by the oratorio St. Ludmila, a comparatively feeble work written "to suit English taste" for the Leeds Festival of 1886. Of the three overtures, op. 91, 92, 93, only the Carneval holds its place; but the New World symphony has become one of the most popular works in the modern repertory, and much of the chamber-music, of which there is abundance, may also be regarded as having permanently established itself, and with good reason, too, for it teems with beauties of every kind. So, too, his Requiem (op. 89), written for the Leeds Festival of 189o, will certainly be rediscovered, though it will never be regarded as religious music. In 1892, after having frequently visited England, Dvorak became head of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York. There he remained till 1895, when he returned to Prague, where he died on May 1, 1904.
Dvoi=ak's talent for composition was of the highest order, but success came to him after a long experience of uneducative hard ships. The world then informed him in a loud instructive voice that his music had the charm of bucolic naivete; and he there upon extensively wrote himself down in affectations of his own simplicity. His first three symphonies, the Scherzo Capriccioso and the Symphonic Variations will be recognized as great music as soon as criticism ceases to worry about forms, fashions and derivations and proceeds to attend to permanent values. Brahms, assuredly no friend to diffuse form, was so delighted with Dvof ak's violoncello concerto (op. 104, one of his most diffuse yet most inventive works) that he said to Hausmann, "Why did nobody tell me that one could write a 'cello concerto like this?" See W. H. Hadow, Studies in Modern Music (second series, 1908).
a (X.; D. F. T.)