Dvořák returns from America

JAN 01 1895 · 12:00

Antonín Dvořák, photographic portrait, 1901 Place: Returning to Prague from New York City via Hamburg Figures: Antonín Dvořák, composer · Jeannette Thurber, founder of the National Conservatory in New York (loses him) · the Prague Conservatoire (gets him back) Jeannette Thurber, philanthropist and founder of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, recruits Dvořák in 1891 with a salary of fifteen thousand dollars, twenty-five times his Prague pay. He arrives at the conservatory at 126–128 East 17th Street in September 1892. He teaches Black and women students alongside white and male, which is the institution's policy and a condition Dvořák accepts without comment. He writes the Ninth Symphony (From the New World), the F major String Quartet (the American), and most of the Cello Concerto in B minor. He spends two summers in the Czech-speaking village of Spillville, Iowa. He learns about the Hiawatha legend. He listens to spirituals sung by his student Harry T. Burleigh. His program note on the Ninth Symphony says the work draws on the spirit, not the literal melodies, of African-American and Native American music. The premiere at Carnegie Hall in December 1893 is a sensation.