In Celebration of the Human Voice - The Essential Musical Instrument

Antonin Dvorak

Born: 1841. Died: 1904. Lived in: Czech

Dvorak was born in Nelahozeves near Prague where he spent most of his life. He studied music in Prague's Organ School at the end of the 1850s, and through the 1860s played viola in the Bohemian Provisional Theatre Orchestra which was from 1866 conducted by Bedoich Smetana.

From 1892 to 1895, Dvorak was director of the National Conservatory in New York City. The Conservatory was founded by a wealthy socialite, Jeannette Thurber, who wanted a well-known composer as director in order to lend prestige to her institution. She wrote to Dvorak, asking him to accept the position, and he agreed, providing that she were willing to meet his conditions: that talented Native American and African-American students, who could not afford the tuition, must be admitted for free. She agreed to his conditions, and he sailed to America.

It was during his time as director of the Conservatory that Dvorak formed a friendship with Harry Burleigh, who became an important African-American composer. Dvorak taught Burleigh composition, and in return, Burleigh spent hours on end singing traditional American Spirituals to Dvorak. Burleigh went on to compose settings of these Spirituals which compare favorably with European classical composition.

Arrangements | Recordings

Recordings and DVDs

Robert Shaw Chorus : Dvorak: Stabat Mater

The late Robert Shaw, who died in January 1999, had a long and fruitful relationship with Telarc, spanning twenty years and producing 41 recordings, eleven of which have won Grammy Awards. The current recording is the final one to be made by the conductor. Included on the second disc is a spoken interview of Shaw made by National Public Radio's Martin Goldsmith, host of "Performance Today." The interview was made in November 1998, just after the recording sessions for the Dvorak Stabat Mater, and features Shaw discussing his career, this work, and the state of the choral art. Portions of the interview were originally broadcast over NPR on April 2, 1999. The Stabat Mater was written by Dvorak in direct response to personal and private grief when he began the work, in 1876, he and his wife had recently lost a baby daughter, who had lived only two days. Other work intervened requiring the composer to set the Stabat Mater aside, but he soon resumed it in 1877 after losing two more children in quick succession-a baby daughter to accidental poisoning, and his three-year-old son to smallpox. The work was premiered in Prague in 1880, by which time Dvorak had risen from obscurity and poverty to become an internationally known composer. In 1883, the London premiere of the Stabat Mater met with such success that Dvorak was invited to come to England to conduct the work. He did so, conducting an enormous orchestra and chorus in the Royal Albert Hall in 1884.

Songlist: Stabat Mater Dolorosa, Quis est homo, qui non fleret, Eja, Mater, Fons amoris, Fac, ut ardeat cor meum, Tui Nati vulernati, Fac me vere tecum flere, Virgo virginum praeclara, Fac, ut portem Christi mortem, Inflammatus et accensus, Quando corpus morietur, Robert Shaw Discusses Dvorak's Stabat Mater with Martin Goldsmith