Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)

The artistic legacy of Antonín Dvořák (8 September 1841 Nelahozeves - 1 May 1904 Prague) belongs to the fundamental pillars of European cultural heritage. During his lifetime, the composer became one of the most important European symphonists and creators of oratorio and chamber music. Since the 1880s, his works have been performed by top performers in the most renowned music centres in many countries of Europe, in the United States, Canada, Russia and Australia. At the end of his life, Dvořák was often hailed as the greatest living composer.

Dvořák is internationally the most performed Czech composer and the most celebrated Czech artist of all time. He laid the foundations of Czech cantata and oratorio music and was the first to introduce Czech modern musical culture to Europe on a large scale. Dvořák's music - growing out of Czech roots and at the same time worldly, traditional, but modern in every age - was and is of key importance for the perception of the Czech lands in the context of European cultural history.

Dvořák's position in the history of music (and perhaps of culture in general) is unique in that he is one of the few artists who managed to express the feeling of human happiness in his work in an unambiguous way. Yet the other dimension of the composer's work cannot be overlooked. Many of the composer's works - and often the most substantial ones - are far removed from the sunny rural idyll with which Dvořák's work is often automatically associated. The Seventh Symphony, the Requiem, the Piano Trio in F minor and the composer's other opuses present Dvořák in a completely different guise: as a man reflecting on the meaning of human existence, as a brooding individual who must painfully struggle his way to inner equilibrium.

An inseparable part of the composer's legacy is also his pedagogical activity at the Prague and New York Conservatories, where many outstanding composers grew up under his tutelage, or his work as a conductor: he performed a large number of his own compositions in premieres and numerous reprises, thus demonstrating his idea of how to interpret a given work. Finally, the composer's role is symbolic. Dvořák's work represents a completely new historical situation at the end of the 19th century: the Czech environment no longer felt the need to catch up with the modern emancipated nations, but instead was able to export the cultural values of European production to the world.

For today's man, swept away by the frenzied flight of the early 21st century and the reign of ubiquitous shouted consumerism, Dvořák's humane and kindly music can represent a fixed point, an unquestionable value, a return to his roots.

SOURCES:

For detailed information on the life and work of Antonín Dvořák, use the link www.antonin-dvorak.cz

Antonín Dvořák Music Festival website - www.hfad.cz