He frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana.

On a summer holiday in Spillville, Iowa in 1893, Dvořák also wrote his most famous piece of chamber music, his twelfth String Quartet in F major, Op.

He originally fell in love with his pupil and colleague from the Provisional Theatre, Josefína Čermáková [cs], for whom he apparently composed the song-cycle "Cypress Trees".

[38] The first press mention of Antonín Dvořák appeared in the Hudební listy journal in June 1871, and the first publicly performed composition was the song Vzpomínání ("Reminiscence", October 1871, musical evenings of Ludevít Procházka [cs]).

[43] On leaving the National Theater Orchestra after his marriage, Dvořák secured the job of organist at St. Vojtěch [cs],[20] also called St. Adalbert's, Church in Prague under Josef Foerster, his former teacher at the Organ School.

[45] In March 1873, his Czech patriotic cantata The Heirs of the White Mountain[46] was performed by the Prague Hlahol Choral Society [de] of 300 singers (conducted by his friend and supporter Karel Bendl) to a warm response from both audience and critics, making it an "unqualified success".

Clapham[52] gives the official report for the 1874 prize, saying Dvořák was a relatively impoverished music teacher who "has submitted 15 compositions, among them symphonies, which display an undoubted talent...The applicant... deserves a grant to ease his straitened circumstances and free him from anxiety in his creative work."

The concerto was premiered in Prague in October 1883 by the violinist František Ondříček, who also played it in Vienna with conductor Hans Richter in December of that year.

However, Dvořák later discovered that, despite this intention, members of the orchestra objected to performing works by the composer in two consecutive seasons, due to "anti-Czech feeling".

The performance was "a greater triumph than any" Dvořák "had had in his life up to that time...following this phenomenal success, choral societies in the English-speaking countries hastened to prepare and present the new work.

[68] In 1887, Richter conducted the Symphonic Variations in London and Vienna to great acclaim (they had been written ten years earlier and Dvořák had allowed them to languish after initial lack of interest from his publishers).

"[69] Despite Dvořák's newfound success, a February 1888 performance of Stabat Mater in Vienna fell victim to more anti-Czech feeling and what the composer called "destructive criticism".

[80] Two months before leaving for America, Dvořák had hired as secretary Josef Jan Kovařík [cs], who had just finished violin studies at the Prague Conservatory and was about to return to his home in the United States.

[84] However, due to homesickness, his partially unpaid salary,[75] and increasing recognition in Europe – he had been made an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna – he decided to return to Bohemia.

Despite protests, from Czech President Václav Havel among others who wanted the house preserved as a historical site, it was demolished in 1991 to make room for a Beth Israel Medical Center residence for people with AIDS.

[100][101] He was informed in November 1898 that Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary would award him a gold medal for Litteris et Artibus, the ceremony taking place before an audience in June 1899.

First, around the actual date, six of his operas and the oratorio St. Ludmila were performed in Prague, but Dvořák was away in Vienna; then in November 1901 came the "postponed official birthday party...

)[107] "Seventy-six choral associations" from all over Bohemia gathered in Prague, and "sixteen thousand singers" sang Dvořák's oratorio Saint Ludmila.

His funeral service was held on 5 May,[111] and his remains were buried in Vyšehrad Cemetery in Prague, beneath a bust by Czech sculptor Ladislav Šaloun.

Many of Dvořák's compositions, such as the Slavonic Dances and his large collection of songs, were directly inspired by Czech, Moravian, and other Slavic traditional music.

[47] To be more specific about "classical models," in 1894 Dvořák wrote an article in which he said the composers of the past he admired most were Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

To improve sales, some publishers such as N. Simrock preferred to represent budding composers as being well established by giving early works much higher opus numbers than their chronological order would merit.

70,[n 7] is highly regarded by critics and musicologists;[118] Sir Donald Tovey stated that "along with the four Brahms symphonies and Schubert's Ninth, it is among the greatest and purest examples in this art-form since Beethoven".

[123] Many conductors have recorded cycles of the symphonies, including Karel Ančerl,[124] Jiří Bělohlávek,[125] Gustavo Dudamel,[126] Neeme Järvi,[127] István Kertész,[128] Rafael Kubelík,[129] Zdeněk Mácal,[130] Václav Neumann,[131] Libor Pešek,[132] Witold Rowicki,[133] and Otmar Suitner.

58, is an extensive (c. 90 minutes) vocal-instrumental sacred work for soli (soprano, alto, tenor and bass), choir and orchestra based on the text of an old church hymn with the same name.

103, is a cantata for soprano and baritone solo, choir and orchestra to the Latin text of the famous hymn Te Deum (God, we laud You).

The composition had been completed before Dvořák moved to America and was commissioned by Jeanette Thurber in 1891, when the composer accepted a position as director of her school.

[74] It was written for a chamber music competition sponsored by the Umělecká beseda (Artistic Circle), where it was unanimously awarded a prize of five ducats for the "distinction of theme, the technical skill in polyphonic composition, the mastery of form and the knowledge of the instruments" displayed.

114, which contains the well-known aria "Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém" ("Song to the Moon"), is played on contemporary opera stages with any frequency outside the Czech Republic.

Dvořák's "Largo" from the New World Symphony was one of several pieces performed in a Japanese internment camp on Sumatra by a vocal orchestra made up of female prisoners of war on 27 December 1943.