Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvořák showed early violin talent, but his first public success in Prague didn't arrive until 1873, when he was 31. He entered German and Austrian competitions hoping for wider notice; in 1874 Johannes Brahms sat on the jury and awarded him a prize. After Dvořák's third win in 1877, Brahms recommended him to publisher Simrock, who commissioned the Slavonic Dances, Op. 46 - their sales launched him internationally. An 1883 London performance of his Stabat Mater opened doors across the UK, the United States, and Russia. In 1892 he became director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York, where he composed the Symphony From the New World and the Cello Concerto; on a summer trip to Spillville, Iowa, in 1893, he wrote the "American" String Quartet. Pay cuts and homesickness pulled him back to Bohemia in 1895. His ten operas carried Czech librettos meant to convey national spirit; Rusalka, premiered in 1901, became by far the most successful.