Antonín Dvorák is recognised today as one of the great composers of the late 19th century. His New World Symphony (1893) and Cello Concerto (1894-5) are among the most popular works in classical concert programmes.
He is most noted for his gift of melody, often with a Czech flavour, and wealth of invention. "What an extraordinary fellow," Johannes Brahms observed about his Czech friend. "Ideas simply pour from him." But in spite of his genius, Dvorák was slow to gain recognition beyond the borders of his homeland. Ironically, it was his response to terrible personal tragedy which propelled him to international acclaim.
By the early 1870s Dvorák, who was born to poor parents in rural southern Bohemia in 1841, was a budding but struggling composer in Prague, unable even to afford a piano of his own. He made a meagre living as violist in the orchestra of the Provisional Theatre, as a church organist and choirmaster, and as a private music teacher. It was in this role that he came into contact with the Cermákova family, and he immediately fell in love with the elder of his two pupils, Josefina. She however, preferred Count Kaunitz to the impecunious musician, so Dvorák, like Mozart in a similar situation, consoled himself with the younger daughter, Anna, whom he married in 1873.
It is likely that Dvorák retained deep feelings for Josefina, and certain passages which he inserted in his Cello Concerto after learning of her death may bear this out. But he and Anna were very happy together, and she proved a loving wife and a great support in his endeavours. She had, for example, a very good business head, something which the shy and unworldly composer lacked.
The serene music of the symphonies, songs and string quartets which he wrote in the early years of his marriage testifies to his contentment. The couple's happiness appeared complete when their first child, Otakar, was born in 1874, and their first daughter, Josefa, a year later. But their world fell apart when Josefa died just two days after her birth.
Over the next few months Dvorák poured all his grief into a setting of Stabat Mater, a medieval poem familiar in a plainchant version, and set to music by many composers including Palestrina, Pergolesi, Vivaldi, Haydn and Rossini. The text, attributed to the friar Jacopone da Todi, meditates on the anguish of the Virgin Mary at her Son's crucifixion. But Dvorák could not finish the work and set it aside. In 1877, however, he and Anna suffered two further cruel blows. In an unguarded moment their 11-month-old daughter, Ruena, got hold of a solution of phosphorus intended for making matches, drank it, and died. Three weeks later, while the parents were still reeling from this tragedy and trying to cope with their own sense of guilt, three-year-old Otakar died of smallpox.
The weight of the composer's grief turned his thoughts once more to his Stabat Mater and within two months the work was complete. It contains bleak and desolate passages, such as the orchestral introduction which evokes Christ on the cross and his mother weeping below. Yet the music becomes warm and compassionate, conveying the consolation afforded the composer by his unshaken Christian beliefs, and perhaps his essentially optimistic character as well. In the final movement the choir extols the glories of paradise in music blazing with light. The cantata closes with an extended "Amen" that is as full of splendour and joy as Handel's at the end of Messiah.
Stabat Mater was first presented in Prague in 1880, but it was the performances Dvorák conducted in England in 1884 - at the Royal Albert Hall and in Worcester Cathedral - which led to his international breakthrough. For his London concert he had a choir of 900 and an orchestra of 150. He reported that the enthusiastic ovation of everyone present knew no bounds.
"From all this," he commented, "I have gained the conviction that a new, and with God's will, happier period is now beginning for me here in England."
At the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester Dvorák conducted Stabat Mater and also his Sixth Symphony. Playing among the first violins for these performances was the young Edward Elgar, who conveyed his impressions to a friend: "I wish you could hear Dvorák's music. It is simply ravishing, so tuneful and clever and the orchestration is wonderful: no matter how few instruments are used it never sounds thin. I cannot describe it, it must be heard!"
The great success of these concerts launched Dvorák on an international career which eventually, in 1892, took him to America. It gave him some financial security and enabled him to achieve one of his greatest ambitions: to acquire a place to live and work in his native southern Bohemia.
Here, in the quiet countryside of Vysoká, and in the midst of a family which grew to six children, a stream of predominantly radiant works, such as the Piano Quintet (1887) and the Eighth Symphony (1889), flowed from his pen.
Dvorák's Stabat Mater will be performed on Tuesday, February 19th in the National Concert Hall by Orla Boylan (soprano), Raphaela Mangan (alto), Robin Tritschler (tenor), Jeffrey Ledwidge (bass), Our Lady's Choral Society and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, conducted by Proinnsías Ó Duinn.