Like so many other composers in the post court-financed 19th century, for a portion of his life Antonin Dvořák struggled financially. He was a talented musician, encouraged by his parents to pursue a career in music. He studied organ, violin, piano and composition as he could afford lessons. For a time, he shared a small apartment with five other young men. His desire was to survive on composition alone, but that takes time and connections, neither of which the young man had. In 1873 he married Anna Cermáková, the younger sister of his first love. Dvořák made ends meet with his pay as principal violist in the Bohemian Provisional Theatre Orchestra in Prague and by serving as organist at St. Adalbert’s Church.
Two years later, Dvořák applied for the Austrian State Prize, a compositional contest which awarded the winner a substantial monetary stipend. One of the judges was Johannes Brahms. Dvořák, who had focused on composing over the previous couple of years, submitted multiple works for consideration. Dvořák won the prize, which not only gave him some temporary financial security, but it also awarded him national fame. In addition, Brahms was greatly impressed with the young man and went out of his way to encourage and promote Dvořák’s works. In the statement announcing the win, the committee lauded his “undoubted talent,” but also noted his “financial circumstances” and hoped that the young composer would use some of the winnings to purchase a piano, as the “applicant has never been able to acquire a piano of his own.” It was the first success for the young composer both financially and professionally.
In 1891, a wealthy New York City patron wanted to create an American school for composers to write music based on American themes. Jeanette Thurber ironically thought the best way to get this started was to hire a European composer to come to America and teach the local composers how to break the dominance of European styles. She offered this position to Dvořák, with the expectation that he stay in the United States for three years with summers off and get paid $15,000 a year, an astonishing amount for the time. After some negotiations, Dvořák took the money and brought his wife, six children, and a maid to New York. During this time in New York, he conducted orchestras, taught young composers, and wrote his “New World” Symphony. It was completed before he made his famous trip to Spillville, Iowa.
The title of the symphony “From the New World” was an afterthought by Dvořák, added just before the premiere. Despite the title, there are Bohemian influences throughout the symphony and very few references to actual music of America. Dvořák, after all, was a nationalist himself. But there are American influences, including African American songs and spirituals. The well-known second movement displays many of these American inspirations. Twenty years after Dvořák’s death, his American student, William Arms Fisher, added words to the poignant melody. “Goin’ Home” grew in popularity during the Great Depression and enhances the melancholy loneliness of the movement.
-Notes by Kevin Lodge