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Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer, conductor and teacher, born on 8 September 1841 at Nelahozeves (near Prague).

The son of a butcher and innkeeper, his parents recognised Antonín's early musical talents, and sent him to study in Prague's Organ School, where he became an accomplished player of the violin and viola, playing the latter in the Bohemian Provisional Theatre Orchestra under their conductor Bedřich Smetana. He abandoned his performing career to become a professional composer in the early 1870s, and was encouraged by Johannes Brahms, who helped to promote his music. In 1888 he was appointed a professor at the Prague Conservatory, and embarked on a series of international tours. After gaining popularity in England and the United States, he accepted an invitation to become director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York from 1892, where he remained for three years. He was later director of the Prague Conservatory from 1901 until his death in 1904.

Tchaikovsky was introduced to Dvořák during his visits to Prague in 1888, and the two men found much to admire in each other's music. Dvořák gave a copy of his Symphony No. 2 with a warm inscription to Tchaikovsky, which is still preserved in the House-Museum at Klin. It was on Tchaikovsky's initiative that Dvořák was invited to Russia, to conduct concerts of his own works in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

Antonín Dvořák died in Prague on 1 May 1904, aged 72.