Chapter II: Durch Kampf Zu Licht

The record of Dvořák's earlier compositions is involved in a good deal of doubt and perplexity. Many of the works were meant simply as exercises and were destroyed as soon as their purpose had been fulfilled: some still remain in manuscript: one or two have passed beyond the reach of conjecture. But at least it appears certain that a string quintett was completed by 1862, that shortly afterwards followed two volumes of songs, printed later as Op. 2 and Op. 3, and that in 1865 came a symphony in B flat (Op. 4),[45] and another in E minor. There is some mention, too, of a grand opera on the subject of Alfred, the libretto of which seems to have been taken from an old German almanack; but the score has long ago vanished into space, and has left behind it nothing more than the bare title. For the rest, we can only say that they would serve to illustrate Bacon's allegory of the 'River of Time.' A few pages of ballad and romance have floated down to us--a dozen songs, a set of short pieces for the pianoforte, a violin tune with orchestral accompaniment--and all the more serious production has sunk on the way. Yet enough is left to give presage of future greatness. No hand but Dvořák's could have written Blumendeutung or Die Sterne, or Der Herr erschuf das Menschenherz. The work may be slight of structure and narrow of range, but from the first it bears clear impress of its author's own character.

During all this time he seems to have made no attempt at publication or performance. We can hardly suppose that his silence was altogether enforced by lack of occasion: his friend Bendl was conductor of the chief choral society in Prague; his friend Smetana was in supreme command at the opera: patriotism was searching every corner for evidences of native genius, and would scarcely have refused him the hearing that it had granted to Sebor and Roskosny. But as yet he had nothing ready to offer. His more ambitious efforts appeared, for the most part, tentative and experimental; the songs, in which alone his true personality had found expression, were to be kept in reserve until he had made his mark with a broader line: on all grounds, it was better to wait in retirement than to injure the cause by a premature display. Once let him attain to some adequate mastery of his materials, and Fate might well be trusted to supply him with opportunity.

At last, apparently in 1871, he was commissioned to write an opera for the Bohemian Theatre,[46] and accepted the invitation with all the responsibility that a first appearance naturally entails. He had, indeed, no little reason to feel responsible. He was now nine-and-twenty years of age, he had spent two-thirds of his life in study and preparation, he was entering that field in which his country's art had hitherto reaped the richer portion of its harvest. Besides, he had recently become acquainted with some of Wagner's work, and was in a state of intense proselytising enthusiasm on the subject of the Music drama. The little folk-song operas were pretty enough, and possessed, no doubt, a true educational value; but the level of public taste was now sufficiently high to appreciate a more solid and serious form of composition. In short, the first period of Bohemian music was drawing to a close, and this commission from the theatre had come, just in the nick of time, to inaugurate the second. He therefore took for his libretto a peasant comedy entitled 'King and Collier,' set it on the most elaborate Wagnerian lines, and, having thus marked in strong relief the difference between his method and that of his predecessors, went confidently down to the theatre and distributed the parts for rehearsal.

There is no great sagacity required to foretell the result. We can imagine the consternation of Smetana, who looked for a new expression of the national idiom, and found himself confronted with a fantastic exaggeration of Meistersinger. We can imagine the dismay of the soloists, accustomed to melody as simple as that of Mozart, and now lost in a tangle of declamatory phrases. The music was at once declared to be wholly impossible, the score was returned with a few disheartening compliments, and Dvořák went back to his place in the ranks, there to meditate at his leisure on the incompatibility of alien systems. It was no doubt unfortunate that his chance should have come to him in a moment of aberration. His Wagner-worship was but a sudden episode, of which no trace can be found in the earlier compositions, of which little or no effect remains in the record of the later work: and it was a sorry jest of the fates, that offered him a native audience at the one period in his life when he had forsaken the native tongue.

But on an apt pupil a lesson, even from Orbilius, is never wasted. Once recovered from the disappointment, Dvořák realised that he was on the wrong tack; that he was forcing his genius in a direction to which it was unsuited; and that if he wished to convince his countrymen, he must address them not in German but in Slavonic. After all, the recent disaster was only a parenthesis; an otiose quotation that could be readily erased: henceforward he would deliver his message in the phraseology that was its natural embodiment. So, by way of palinode, he set Hálek's fine patriotic hymn, 'The Heirs of the White Mountain,' a poem which, in scope and feeling, may almost rank as the counterpart of Leopardi's 'Italia'; and, in the season of 1873, made with it an appeal to that national sympathy which his last work had done so little to conciliate. No choice could have been more happily inspired. The theme was one of which patriotism was never weary; the strong, manly verses were already familiar as household words; the music held the concert-room in breathless attention from the sombre opening to the great, glorious cadence in the final stanza. There was no longer any question of his place in Bohemian art. At one stroke the memory of old failure was obliterated; at one step the patriot passed from obscurity into the full light of honour and reputation.

As yet, however, there was little hope of material reward. It was still the day of small things in Bohemia: posts were few; salaries were meagre; fame spread but slowly across the mountain barriers by which the frontier was encircled. But in any case, it was impossible that Dvořák should remain any longer in his present penury, and at some time in 1873 he was appointed organist to the city church of St Adalbert. The change was somewhat incongruous after eleven years' viola playing in a theatre orchestra, but at least it brought him a more individual position, opened to him some career as a teacher, and assured him a stipend upon which he found it possible to marry. A pleasant indication of altered circumstances is to be found in an 'Ave Maris Stella,' dedicated 'uxori carissimæ,' and printed 'sumptibus et proprietate Emilii Stary.' When a man is raised to ecclesiastical office, the least that he can do is to assume the state and dignity of a learned language.

In the winter of 1873 appeared a notturno for strings, followed in the next year by a symphony in E flat, and the scherzo of a symphony in D minor. Meantime, the theatre, which had been keeping a watchful eye on its truant ever since his return to the paths of patriotism, once more summoned him into its presence, and made amends for past disfavour by the offer of another commission. For answer, Dvořák took the old libretto that had shared the misfortune of his _début_, reset it from beginning to end, and in less than three months, presented to the directors a new version of the unlucky drama, in which, it is said, not one bar of the original score was preserved. The feat is one of the most remarkable in the history of opera. There are plenty of cases in which a composer has altered or revised his work--Wagner made additions to _Tannhäuser_, Weber reluctantly excised an important scene from _Der Freischütz_--but it is one thing to remodel a few details; it is another to reorganise an entire structure. Some little versatility is required to set even a song in two different ways; much more to find a new musical expression for a complete cast of _dramatis personæ_.

But the most curious part of the story is still to come. The second version of 'King and Collier' was produced on October 24th, and at once revealed the fact that its libretto was totally inadequate. The _tour de force_, in short, had altogether failed, and Dvořák found that he had only escaped the charge of melody that could not be sung, to meet with equally galling condolence on a play that could not be acted. No doubt the music was welcomed with acclamation, especially the overture and the scene in the collier's cottage, but its very transparency brought into clearer view the manifest imperfection of the words. It was a thousand pities, said the critics, that so great a composer should have spent his genius on a rambling incoherent farce with a poor plot, a hero eminently unheroic, and a third act merely irrelevant and absurd. He would have done far better if he had followed the more common-place method of providing himself with another subject.

Dvořák, however, was not to be beaten. He knew that his own part in the work had been satisfactorily played; he could see no reason for losing his labour; and so, after an interval which was occupied in further compositions, he set himself to look for a new librettist. In course of time he met with a poet called Novotny, who had just written an opera-book for Smetana, called him into collaboration, and produced, with his aid, a final version of the play in which the first two acts are considerably altered, and the third replaced by a more adequate substitute. There can be no doubt that the changes were of vital improvement. In its present form the intrigue runs easily enough, the characters are well drawn, the situations are mainly striking and effective, and the mock trial brings down the curtain on a climax of fitting irony. But we are here less concerned with a criticism of the result than with a sketch of the remarkable series of conditions under which it was effected. An opera of which the text is rewritten and the music recomposed is a phenomenon sufficiently unusual to demand more than a passing word of comment. The Irishman's knife, which had a new blade and a new handle, does not offer a more bewildering problem of identity.

It was natural that the fresh interest should bring Dvořák, for the time, into a more intimate relation with the Bohemian Theatre. By the end of 1875 he had completed two more operas; one a bright little village comedy called 'The Stubborn Heads'; one a tragedy in five acts, on the subject of Vanda, Queen of Poland. The latter is at present beyond the reach of discussion; even the opera-house at Prague possesses no copy of the score, and no part of the music has yet been printed, except the fine gloomy overture. But the former, which, for some reason, was kept in reserve until 1882, is now easily attainable, and may well claim a better fate than our indifference has accorded to it. The theme is simplicity itself. Farmer Vavra has a grown-up son; Widow Rihova, who lives over the way, has a marriageable daughter; of course they lay their heads together and decide that their children shall make a match of it. Unfortunately the young people, who would have liked nothing better if they had been left to themselves, declined altogether to have their affections forced, and break out into open mutiny. Vavra threatens, Tonik defies; Rihova pleads, Lenka snaps her fingers; and matters have come to a hopeless deadlock when there steps in old father Rericha the village diplomatist. He has been watching the failure of authority with sardonic delight, he foretold it from the beginning, but nobody paid any attention to him; now he takes the two mutineers, provokes them first into jealousy, then into recrimination, then into a lovers' quarrel, and finally induces them to plight their troth before they are quite certain that they have been reconciled. For reasons of stage policy, the parents are made unconscious accomplices in the plot; and there is an amusing scene in which Rericha, having lured them into a couple of unjustifiable flirtations, betrays them to the village, and has them denounced by an excited chorus. Of the music there is no need to speak in detail. It is neither great nor meant to be great, but it is all pleasant and tuneful; a stream of wayside melody that appeals the more to us for its lack of pretension. The whole work belongs to the playtime of art: it is a holiday opera, gay, careless and spontaneous, occupying its hour without a dull bar or a perfunctory phrase.

Meanwhile, other forms of composition were not neglected. At the beginning of 1875 appeared a string quartett in A minor; later in the year followed a serenade in E for stringed orchestra, a quintett in G, and, greatest of all, a brilliant symphony in F major. It is probable, too, that we may attribute to the same period the first pianoforte trio, the first pianoforte quartett, and at least three volumes of small vocal pieces; but in these, as in other of Dvořák's early works, the record is too uncertain to admit of any strict chronological accuracy. He was still a prophet honoured in his own country alone; and his message, though heard with enthusiasm by his people, had not yet been published abroad in the ears of Europe.

However, in 1875, there occurred an event, which not only brought relief to the daily need, but opened as well a wider prospect of fame and fortune. Encouraged by the success of his work at Prague, Dvořák sent in an application to the Pension committee of the Austrian Kultusministerium, submitted an opera and a symphony by way of credentials, and received in answer a grant of some thirty pounds; the first recognition that his genius had won from beyond the border. No doubt to Imperial munificence the amount was an inconsidered trifle; to the organist of St Adalbert's it meant first the equivalent of a year's salary, and secondly the more valuable guerdon of a foothold in Vienna. The judges who had awarded his prize were among the acknowledged leaders of musical art; supported by their authority he could hardly fail to obtain a wider hearing; and if that was once secured the future rested with himself. The frontier had at last been traversed, and before him lay the broad fertile plains that were waiting to be conquered.

To equip himself with a greater freedom, he resigned his post in the year 1876, and began to devote his life almost entirely to the more pressing requirements of composition. It was a bold step, for it left him with a growing household, and an income chiefly dependent upon his pen; but like all true artists he had the courage of inspiration, and felt that victory was certain, if he were allowed to maintain his cause with his own weapons. The immediate result was the creation of a masterpiece, which, had he written nothing else, would suffice to rank him among the greatest composers of our time. It may be possible that in the Stabat Mater there are a few imperfections, that the sterner qualities are wanting, that some of the phrases are a thought too ingenious and recondite. But its opulence of melody, its warmth of colour, its exquisite beauty of theme and treatment, are far more than enough to condone any real or imaginary defects. With its completion the music of Dvořák passed out of adolescence into the full vigour of maturity and manhood. In its achievement the long years of unsparing labour found at last a befitting reward.

The score was sent off to try its fortune in Vienna, and, by some incredible error, was rejected.[47] Perhaps the judges were afraid of creating a precedent, perhaps they thought that dewdrops of celestial melody should be either invaluable or of no value, in any case they withheld their guineas and added another item to the long catalogue of academic injustice. To Dvořák the loss must have been a serious matter, for he had now no official position, and his pupils had never brought any great accession to his revenue, but with his usual sturdy patience he refused to be disheartened by the mischance, and gathered his forces into winter quarters, there to make preparation for another campaign. After all the disaster was but a temporary check; it could retard his progress, it could cut off his supplies, but it could neither impair his capacity, nor turn the edge of his resolution. He had already gained one success at Vienna: next year it should go hard, but he would match it with a second.

Accordingly, in 1877, he again made appeal to the Kultusministerium, offering in defence of his claim the Moravian duets, and a few of the more recent chamber-works. They arrived at an opportune moment, for Brahms had just been appointed a member of the awarding committee, and, under his guidance, there could no longer be any doubt of its decision. The grant was at once renewed and augmented, the composer was welcomed with cordial and generous commendation; finally the duets were sent off to Simrock, franked by a letter of introduction that was more than enough to secure their acceptance. Back came an answer from the great publishing house at Berlin--the duets should be printed without delay; other manuscripts might be despatched for consideration, in the meantime would Herr Dvořák accept the commission to write a set of characteristic national dances? To such an offer there was only one possible response. Before the close of the year the Slavische Tänze were finished; at the beginning of 1878 they were in print, in a few months they had roused the whole of Germany to the appreciation of a neglected genius. Henceforward his reputation was established beyond dispute. Like Byron, he awoke to find himself famous, and to look back upon the times of darkness and disappointment as a man looks back upon his dreams.

Among the other compositions of 1877 may be noted a set of symphonic variations, and a new comedy, the Cunning Peasant. In the latter Dvořák was again hampered by his uncritical acceptance of a bad libretto. The plot is clumsy and ill-contrived, a medley of cross-purposes entwined at random, and severed in despair; the characters are drawn after a wholly conventional pattern, the humour is for the most part shallow and superficial. When Betuska defies parental tyranny, we all know that she will be rewarded with the suitor that she has chosen for herself. When old Martin lays a trap for the hero, we all know that the comic valet is destined to fall into it. When the count appears as a _diabolus ex machinâ_, anyone can foresee that he will end by blessing the lovers in a fit of stage repentance. And the incident on which the intrigue is made to depend, a twilight scene, with three indistinguishable heroines, forestalls its effect by elaborate preparation, and then only strikes the spectator as an extreme demand upon his credulity. But Dvořák, like Schubert, could 'set a handbill to music.' Out of this unpromising material he has made an opera, which, from overture to finale, sparkles with the merriest tunes, an opera which altogether disregards the impracticable requirements of the dramatist, and goes back openly and frankly to the lyric standpoint. As a play it offers a hundred hostages to criticism, but then it has already been betrayed by a treacherous alliance. As a musical extravaganza it is almost irresistible; brightly written, admirably scored, and charming enough to redeem the most rigorous of pledges.

In spite of its text the opera was so favourably received that Dvořák sent the score to Simrock, who at once printed the overture as a concert piece, and supplemented it later with a German version of the entire work. Indeed, during the next few years, the presses were busy with compositions by the new master, some of them fresh written, some gathered from the great pile of manuscript that had been accumulating since 1861. Day after day was filled with correspondence, with proof correction, with all the numberless details of the printing office: day after day saw another stone added to the structure that had waited so long for its foundation. And, beside this, the bare catalogue of more recent production is in itself a sign of no inconsiderable activity. To 1878 belong the Slavonic Rhapsodies, the serenade for wind, 'cello and contrabass, the bagatellen, the string sestett in A major, the 149th psalm, and a host of smaller pieces; next year came the orchestral suite, and the violin concerto; next year the Legenden, and the violin sonata in F; next year the Stabat Mater and the great D major symphony. Even these are but items in the sum, not indications of its total amount. There is little wonder that Europe should feel itself the richer for a gift so unexpected and so abundant.

But Dvořák could not wholly give up to mankind what was meant, in the first instance, for a patriotic party. The opening of the New Bohemian Theatre in 1881 recalled him from Legends and Rhapsodies into the full stir and impetus of national life, and set him once more in the van of that strange, half-artistic, half-political movement that had found its type and representative in the 'Heirs of the White Mountain.' The two works which he wrote this year for the stage have almost the tone of manifestoes; curiously alike in scope and plan, curiously different in the measure of their ultimate value. Both make direct appeal to popular sympathy; both recall some notable period in the history of Bohemia; both draw their inspiration from melodies that have gained acceptance among the folk-songs of the people. But here parallel gives way to contrast. The Husitska overture, founded on a famous battle-song of the Hussite wars, is a masterpiece which turns to a noble use, one of the finest themes in Bohemian art--the incidental music to Samberk's 'Tyl,' takes perforce the poor melody of the national anthem, for which Tyl had written the words, and so foredooms itself to failure by a fault that is not its own. Of course in the latter case the choice was inevitable. A drama which had the revolutionary poet for central figure, could only be set by _motifs_ that made reference to the best known of his works, and in Bohemia, as in many other countries, the national anthem has been accepted by accident, and maintained by force of association. Still, the comparison of the two results is a lesson of the highest significance. In Husitska, Dvořák selected a genuine folk-song, and raised it into a national monument that will stand the test of time. In Tyl he borrowed the tune of a Prague Kapellmeister, and with all ingenuity of treatment, could lift it to no higher level than that of a _pièce d'occasion_. It was perfectly natural that both works alike should obtain an immediate welcome. They appeared at a moment of crisis; they addressed a sentiment of loyalty; they stood for the time outside the range of dispassionate criticism. But to us, who may regard the matter from a purely artistic standpoint, the difference between them is incalculable. Both are well written; both have accessory themes of great beauty; both are scored with all their composer's accustomed skill, but one is built upon the bed-rock of the Bohemian mountains, the other upon an artificial basement that only holds together by external support.

Having once more gained access to the Theatre, Dvořák proceeded to occupy the position, and in 1882 strengthened it by the production of Dimitrij, which, among all his operas, is the largest in scale, and the most dramatic in treatment. He had, indeed, a subject made to his hand. The romance of history contains no more striking episode than that of the false Demetrius; a story of heroism and imposture, of honour in conflict with ambition, of love that betrays a trust, and jealousy that wrecks a life. Marina's character is one of singular interest and complexity, torn between allegiance to her nation and loyalty to her husband, aiding him to usurp the throne which he believes to be his by right, denouncing him in anger when he uses his power against her countrymen, watching his assassination on the spot where she had shared his triumph. Here are no foregone conclusions; no idle displays of theatrical ingenuity; no stage lay figures clad in traditional garb; the whole event is a transcript from nature, vivid, real, convincing, and the more tragic for the cross issue upon which it turns. It may be added that Dvořák has accomplished his part in the work with unusual care and anxiety. After the first performance some important changes were made, notably in the overture, and in the closing scenes, and though the music has since been printed in its revised form, the composer, still dissatisfied, has recently submitted it to a new process of recension. Yet in its earlier shape the score contained passages and numbers which the world would be the poorer for losing. The most relentless self-criticism could hardly have bettered the entry into Moscow, or Xenia's flight, or the great duet in the second act.

Meantime the curtain was rising upon another scene, which had England for its stage, and Dvořák himself for its hero. As early as 1879, the attention of English musicians had been aroused by a performance of the Slavische Tänze; the interest once excited had steadily grown and gathered as new works made their appearance; and, in March 1883, the composer was invited over to conduct his Stabat Mater at the Albert Hall. His reception was one of the most cordial ever offered by our land to a foreign artist. The house was crowded and appreciative; the press for once raised a unanimous voice of approbation; the example set by London was soon followed by other great centres throughout the country. No doubt there was something of fashion and novelty in the movement:--every great stream of tendency carries these attendant bubbles upon its surface: but at least the current was set in a right direction, and was destined to maintain its course without swerving. The lapse of years may have brought us a cooler judgment; it has certainly brought us a stronger and more reasoned admiration.

In 1884 the Stabat Mater was repeated at Worcester, where it met with so brilliant a success, that Dvořák was at once commissioned to write a cantata for next year's Birmingham Festival. As libretto he took a Slavonic version of the Lenore legend, a vampyre story, even wilder and more savage than the famous ballad which Burger wrote, and Scott translated. It is not, perhaps, a very satisfactory subject for a long work. There is too much monotony of suffering: there is too much gloom and terror and pain: a tragedy so unrelieved comes near to over-straining the sympathy of the spectator. But for all this it offers certain points of vantage which Dvořák was abundantly qualified to seize. In setting the words, he wisely treated the musical aspect as paramount, brought to the task all his resources of rhythm and harmony and melodic invention, and produced a poem in which horror itself is made beautiful, and darkness lightened with flashes of electric genius. Grant that the 'Spectre's Bride' is too long, that it needs compression; that it loses effect by repetition and redundance; none the less it can show some of the finest numbers that its composer has ever written, and with such summits attained, may well look down upon any censure of inequality.

A remarkable contrast is afforded by the Oratorio of St Ludmila, which was produced at the Leeds Festival of 1886. The theme is fertile in opportunity, the book is written by the first of living Bohemian poets, the music dates from the centre of Dvořák's richest period, and yet the whole impression left on the hearer is one of failure and disappointment. For this our own reputation is chiefly to blame. It is a matter of common belief abroad, that the only works which can really attract a British audience are the Elijah and the Messiah; that in them we find all music comprised, that from them we construct a standard by which we test the entire range of composition. Perhaps our past history in some degree justifies the charge; perhaps we have unduly favoured the two great masterpieces that were written for our country; in any case the tradition obtains, and St Ludmila may stand as the most salient example of its effect. The opening chorus is characteristic enough; the rest is all dominated by the influence of Handel and Mendelssohn; a labour that is lost by conformity with an alien method, a gift that is marred by the very means taken to render it acceptable.

But during all these years, the best record of Dvořák's genius is to be found in his instrumental compositions. Even the Spectre's Bride is not of more account than the Symphony in D minor, the Symphony in G, and the array of chamber-works that reach their climax with the famous Pianoforte Quintett. To these may be added the trifles of a lighter mood--waltzes, mazurkas, dainty little sketches for the pianoforte--all too slight to establish a reputation, but all beautiful enough for its adornment. At the same time he was gaining strength and experience as a song-writer. The Zigeunerlieder had already marked a new stage in his lyric method; they were now followed by three volumes of equal charm and of a style even more fully developed. Indeed, as we look through the pages of successful attainment, we are in no mind to cavil because one effort has missed its mark. Assuredly, there was no lack of power in the artist who could retrieve a single defeat with so many victories.

In 1889 he brought out his sixth opera, Jakobin--a sentimental comedy of a type that held the stage some half-century ago. The play is somewhat spoiled by a double intrigue, of which it may be said that the less prominent strand is the better woven. We grow rather weary of Count Bohus and his peasant-wife; driven from home by an unbending father, supplanted by a wicked cousin, restored by a reminiscence of early childhood; but we can all sympathise with the old Kapellmeister who arranges the castle pageants, and who, on the eve of his cantata, has to choose a son-in-law between the burgomaster of the town and its only tenor.

Later events are of too recent a memory to require any detailed description. In 1889, Dvořák was decorated by the Austrian Court; in 1890 he was admitted to the Honorary Doctorate at Cambridge; in the same year, Prague elected him Doctor of Philosophy, and appointed him Professor of Composition at the Conservatorium. Next autumn he again visited England, to conduct his Requiem at the Birmingham Festival, and shortly afterwards accepted the post of Musical Director at New York, where, with an occasional holiday in Bohemia, he remained until 1895. During his residence in America he was much attracted by the sweetness and _naïveté_ of the negro melodies, and, though he never actually transferred any of them to his own pages, yet in more than one composition he shows clear traces of their influence. This is particularly the case with his symphony, 'From the New World' (Op. 95), so named because it was the first work of his written in the United States, and with the String Quartett in F major (Op. 96) and A flat major (Op. 105). In all these the most conspicuous themes are intimately affected by the 'Plantation Songs,' and it is interesting to note with what skill Dvořák has absorbed their character into his own style and method.

Among other notable works published at this period should be mentioned the set of 'Elegies' (Dumky) for Pianoforte trio, the three great concert overtures, 'In der Natur,' 'Carnaval,' and 'Otello,' a quintett in E flat minor, and a collection of 'Bible Songs,' the words of which are mainly taken from the Psalms. His last Transatlantic composition was a cantata, 'The American Flag,' written for the Chicago Exhibition of 1895. Shortly afterwards, influenced, it would seem, by sheer nostalgia, he resigned his appointment and returned to Bohemia, where he has since resided; partly in Prague and partly in his country house some thirty miles away. His restoration to his own country was marked by another outburst of composition, and in 1896 there appeared the Violoncello Concerto, the String Quartetts in A flat and G, and the three symphonic poems, 'Der Wassermann,' 'Die Mittagshexe,' and 'Das Goldene Spinnrad.' In the same year was published the 'Te Deum,' which had been produced at the Birmingham Festival of 1894, but the work, in spite of some brilliant passages, is not one of his greatest and needs here no more than the bare mention. After 1896 came an interval of silence; doubtless to be explained by the cares of office at the Prague Conservatorium: then in 1899 followed 'Die Waldtaube,' and 'Heldenlied,' and in 1901 the new opera of 'Roussalka.'

FOOTNOTES:

[45] This opus number is appended to the autograph score. The Quintett and both the symphonies are still unpublished.

[46] See a complete history of this work in the preface to the present libretto; see also Dr Stecker's article on Dvořák in the new 'Bohemian Encyclopædia.' Both these authorities give 1871 as the date.

[47] See the biographical sketch of Dvořák, by H. E. Krehbiel, _Century_, Sept. 1892.