Dvorak: Carnival Overture
Composer Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
The Big Break. Every young artist or performer yearns for it: the moment when Someone Important notices you, recognizes your genius, and introduces you to the audience that will do likewise. From that moment, you imagine, your life will never be the same.
That’s the story as we imagine it, of course – and it happens just often enough that generation after generation returns to it. In 1877 it happened to Antonin Dvorak, the son of a Bohemian butcher and tavernkeeper, only after he’d toiled in poverty and obscurity for a decade, scraping out a living as a violist in theatre orchestras in Prague. Dvorak sent in a pile of unpublished and unperformed manuscripts to a composition contest, not knowing when he did so who its judges were and hoping vaguely for a financial prize. Well, the judges were Johannes Brahms and his friend, the eminent music critic Eduard Hanslick, and Brahms recognized Dvorak’s genius at once. Brahms arranged with his publisher to issue many of the younger composer’s written works and saw to it that they were performed in Germany and Austria; Dvorak never wanted for an audience (or for money) again.
The Carnival Overture was written in 1891, by which time Dvorak was among central Europe’s most respected composers and the year before he began a two-year sojourn in America as Director of the National Conservatory. It was the second of a three-overture cycle, “Nature, Life, and Love.” Life (Carnival), as it was originally called, portrayed life – as its title suggests – as a vast carnival, replete with noisy crowds, vendors, barkers, and even “a pair of straying lovers,” as the composer put it. The three overtures were premiered together in Prague in Spring of 1892, and Carnival was played again six months later in Carnegie Hall, when Dvorak introduced himself to American audiences in a huge concert commemorating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ “discovery” of America. So it was with this piece that America discovered Dvorak, and vice versa, and it was with this piece that a beautiful friendship between Dvorak and his new world began.
See a performance
Hear Carnival Overture
Chris Vaneman is the Director of the Petrie School of Music and Associate Professor of Flute at Converse College. Chris frequently leads the Spartanburg Philharmonic pre-concert lecture series “Classical Conversations,” and occasionally performs as a substitute flutist in the orchestra.