Page 215 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

NATIONALISM 1830–1920 213

See also: The Bartered Bride 206 ■ Finlandia 220–221 ■ The Lark Ascending
252–253 ■ Janá cˇek’s Sinfonietta 263 ■ Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 270–271

The Bohemian polka, illustrated here
by Herrman Koenig, is attributed to
Anna Slezáková, who danced the steps
to a folk song in 1834. Dvorˇák’s earliest
surviving composition was a polka.

older Smetana was already
cultivating a reputation as a
champion of a Czech style of music
after spending most of his early
creative years in Sweden. Antonín Dvorˇák
Smetana’s first language was
German, and he had only recently The son of an innkeeper,
begun to study Czech when he Dvorˇák was born in a village
responded to a contest to compose north of Prague in 1841. He
a Czech opera. He submitted The shared his father’s passion
for the violin, and from 1857
Brandenburgers in Bohemia, which he also studied the organ in
premiered in 1866, and went on to Prague, playing the instrument
produce many celebrated works in in several orchestras.
classical European symphonic and Czech, such as The Bartered Bride, By the early 1870s, Dvorˇák
chamber forms to produce works a set of symphonic poems called had taken up composition
of a strongly patriotic nature that Má vlast (My homeland), and full time and was married to
incorporated the spirit of regional Vlatava, which paints the course Anna, with whom he would
folk songs and dances. of the river running through Prague. have nine children. Dvorˇák's
Inspired by Smetana’s Czech career was aided by Johannes
Two composers operas, Dvorˇák composed Alfred Brahms, who sat on a panel
Dvorˇák was an accomplished in 1870, but it was not performed in that awarded Dvorˇák a grant
keyboard player and violinist, his lifetime. His next, The King and to pursue his music. He also
recommended Dvorˇák to his
who had played in several Prague the Charcoal Burner, was at first publisher, who encouraged
orchestras when he joined the one rejected as unplayable, though him to write a set of Slavonic
at the city’s Provincial Theatre in eventually accepted after extensive dances. Their publication
1866, conducted by Smetana. The rewrites. Dvorˇák gave up his ❯❯ changed his fortunes; new
commissions at home and
from England soon followed.
Time signature
of 2 quarter note Dvorˇák directed the National
beats per bar. 1st Beat 2nd Beat 1st Beat 2nd Beat Conservatory of Music in New
York from 1892–1895, before
returning to Prague to teach
and write new works based
on Bohemian folk tales. He
died from a stroke in 1904.

Other key works
Emphasis Emphasis
1878 Slavonic Dances, Book 1,
Originally a Bohemian peasant dance, the polka Op. 46
has two strong beats in each bar, inviting dancers to 1885 Symphony No. 7, Op. 70
step in lively, bouncing fashion. It became a popular 1900 Rusalka, Op. 144
ballroom dance in the 1830s.

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