Dvořák had a passionate interest in locomotives and industrial progress, and a steamship brought him to New York to direct the National Conservatory of Music.
Performer Biography
Jan Michiels, the pianist on this recording, was a laureate of the international Queen Elizabeth Competition in 1991 and is a piano professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.
Composition History
The Dumka, a new musical form Dvořák developed, was inspired by two Ukrainian literary forms: the lyrical dumka and the epic duma.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Dvořák aimed to write accessible music, stating in an 1894 article on Schubert that "modern taste demands of music that it be concise, condensed and powerful."
Compositional Technique
Janáček based his compositional approach on "spoken melodies," noting down the intonations of human speech and other sounds from daily life.
Composer Biography
Leoš Janáček considered Antonín Dvořák a father figure and his most important heir, stating, "Nothing in the world can break such a bond."
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