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| Young Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) |
By Geoffrey Dean
The Czech romantic composer Antonín Dvořák gained international popularity in the late 1870s, when his first set of Slavonic Dances was published at the recommendation of Johannes Brahms. Like so many other works by Dvořák, the Slavonic Dances use characteristic folk rhythms coupled with catchy folk-like tunes that were invented by Dvořák rather than being quoted from existing music. Dvořák used a similar combination of borrowing and invention when he came to the United States in 1892 and set out to show American composers how they might create an American-sounding classical music – a national school of composition similar to the ones that had emerged in Russia and Dvořák’s own Bohemia.
