Marin Alsop, the conductor, studied at Yale and the Juilliard School, and won the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at Tanglewood, where she studied with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa.
Composer Biography
Antonín Dvořák, the composer, was born in 1841 as the eldest son of a butcher and innkeeper and was initially expected to follow the family trade.
Composition History
Johannes Brahms was instrumental in arranging the publication of Dvořák's Moravian Duets and commissioning his Slavonic Dances, which introduced Dvořák's music to a wider public.
Historical Context
Dvořák was invited to New York in 1891 to direct the National Conservatory of Music, an institution intended to foster American music, following his success in establishing Czech national musical identity.
Recording & Production
This recording by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop is the first of three discs featuring Dvořák's symphonies, captured live at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.
Composition History
Dvořák's music gained wider recognition and material assistance through an Austrian government award, which brought his work to the attention of critic Eduard Hanslick and composer Johannes Brahms.
Composer Biography
Dvořák earned his living as a viola-player in a band that later formed the nucleus of the Czech Provisional Theatre Orchestra, where Bedřich Smetana was appointed conductor.
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