Focusing on Dvorak's eventful stay in the United States from 1892 to 1895, this book explores the world behind the public legend, offering fresh insights into the composer's music. We see the traditional image--that of a simple Czech fellow with a flair for composing symphonic and chamber music--give way to one of a complex figure writing works filled with hidden drama and secret programs. In his cogent examination of Dvorak's state of mind, Michael B. Beckerman, a noted scholar of Czech music, concludes that the composer suffered from a debilitating and previously unexplored anxiety...

Antonin Dvorak made his famous trip to the United States one hundred years ago, but despite an enormous amount of attention from scholars and critics since that time, he remains an elusive figure. Comprising both interpretive essays and a selection of fascinating documents that bear on Dvorak's career and music, this volume addresses fundamental questions about the composer while presenting an argument for a radical reappraisal.

The essays, which make up the first part of the book, begin with Leon Botstein's inquiry into the reception of Dvorak's work in German-speaking Europe,...

Once thought to be a provincial composer of only passing interest to eccentrics, Leos Janacek (1854-1928) is now widely acknowledged as one of the most powerful and original creative figures of his time. Banned for all purposes from the Prague stage until the age of 62, and unable to make it even out of the provincial capital of Brno, his operas are now performed in dynamic productions throughout the globe. This volume brings together some of the world's foremost Janacek scholars to look closely at a broad range of issues surrounding his life and work. Representing the latest in Janacek...