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WRTI 90.1's Essential Classical Composer No. 8: Antonín Dvo?ák

Wikipedia Commons
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

Don’t even try to think of a bad piece of music by Antonín Dvo?ák, because you won't find any. Not in our book, anyway. And you thought so highly of the Bohemian master that you voted him No. 8 in our Essential Composer Countdown. Probably no one from that time had a more varied output. Did you know:

  • Brahms was a big fan (and he wasn’t a big fan of too many)?.
  • Dvo?ák submitted his First Symphony to a competition and suffered the double ignominy of not winning and of their losing the score?.
  • You may know he stayed in America in the early 1890s. One reason he went back to Europe? His American paychecks were constantly late.?
  • He composed his two most popular orchestral works in the U.S., however: the Symphony No. 9.“From the New World,” and the Cello Concerto?.
  • He was a violinist and an organist?.

What was behind that New World Symphony? Kile Smith takes a look.

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