Antonin Dvor k made his famous trip to the United States one hundred
years ago, but despite an enormous amount of attention from scholars and
critics since that time, he remains an elusive figure. Comprising both
interpretive essays and a selection of fascinating documents that bear
on Dvor k's career and music, this volume addresses fundamental
questions about the composer while presenting an argument for a radical
reappraisal.The essays, which make up the first part of the book, begin
with Leon Botstein's inquiry into the reception of Dvor k's work in
German-speaking Europe, in England, and in America. Commenting on the
relationship between Dvor k and Brahms, David Beveridge offers the first
detailed portrait of perhaps the most interesting artistic friendship of
the era. Joseph Horowitz explores the context in which the "New World"
Symphony was premiered a century ago, offering an absorbing account of
New York musical life at that time. In discussing Dvor k as a composer
of operas, Jan Smaczny provides an unexpected slant on the widely held
view of him as a "nationalist" composer. Michael Beckerman further
investigates this view of Dvor k by raising the question of the role
nationalism played in music of the nineteenth century.The second part of
this volume presents Dvor k's correspondence and reminiscences as well
as unpublished reviews and criticism from the Czech press. It includes a
series of documents from the composer's American years, a translation of
the review of Rusalka's premiere with the photographs that accompanied
the article, and Jan \SC187\ek's analyses of the symphonic poems. Many
of these documents are published in English for the first time.
