Antonin Dvorak

by John Clapham

Of all Slavonic composers Dvorak stands nearest to the great Viennese classical tradition, yet (paradoxically) he is intensely national and as personal a composer as has ever lived. (This is a paradox within a paradox: so many "national" composers seem to have sunk personality in nationality.) He is, as someone has said, "the most musical composer since Schubert"--Who, as the article reprinted on pp. 296-305 shows us, was his idol and whom he criticized in terms that often apply to himself -- and the very ease with which he seems not only to have poured out melody but to have thought contrapuntally, so that even his mere doodling is apt to be in invertible counterpoint, has sometimes led (a third paradox) to undervaluation of his powers. - Foreword.