Beskrivelse
The first-half of this book is devoted to a biography of the composer while the second half is about his music. Dvorák was a prolific composer of a seemingly fateful nine symphonies (like Beethoven, Schubert, Vaughan Williams, and Mahler), concertos for piano, for violin and for cello, all of which are standard pieces in the concert repertoire, religious music, operas, and much beautiful chamber music. Also as usual there are many examples in musical notation in the latter half of the book. Dvorák had very humble beginnings as the son of a rural butcher who was born in a village some forty-five miles north of Prague. He was fortunate enough to be taken under the wing of a local organist and his musical career developed from there. Despite its age (the book was originally published in 1945) this is an authoritative book and will provide an excellent introduction to the life and work of the composer. It concludes with a Calendar of events in Dvorák’s life, a Catalogue of Compositions, short biographies of those who were influential in Dvorák’s life, and suggestions for further reading.
