title: New France

text: The trading post of Ville-Marie, established on the current island of Montreal, quickly became the economic hub for the French fur trade. It achieved this in great part due to its particular location along the St. Lawrence River. From here a new economy emerged, one of size and density that provided increased economic opportunities for the inhabitants of New France. In December 1627 the Company of New France was recognized and given commercial rights to the gathering and export of furs from French territories. By trading with various indigenous populations and securing the main markets its power grew steadily for the next decade. As a result, it was able to set specific price points for furs and other valuable goods, often doing so to protect its economic hegemony over other trading partners and other areas of the economy.


title: New France

text: The fur trade itself was based on a commodity of small bulk but high value. Because of this it managed to attract increased attention and/or input capital that would otherwise be intended for other areas of the economy. The Montreal area witnessed a stagnant agricultural sector; it remained for the most part subsistence orientated with little or no trade purposes outside of the French colony. This was a prime example of the handicapping effect the fur trade had on its neighbouring areas of the economy.


title: New France

text: Nonetheless, by the beginning of the 1700s the economic prosperity the fur trade stimulated slowly transformed Montreal. Economically, it was no longer a town of small traders or of fur fairs but rather a city of merchants and of bright lights. The primary sector of the fur trade, the act of acquiring and the selling of the furs, quickly promoted the growth of complementary second and tertiary sectors of the economy. For instance a small number of tanneries was established in Montreal as well as a larger number of inns, taverns and markets that would support the growing number of inhabitants whose livelihood depended on the fur trade. Already by 1683 there were well over 140 families and there may have been as many as 900 people living in Montreal.


title: New France

text: The founding of the Compagnie des Indes in 1718, once again highlighted the economic importance of the fur trade. This merchant association, like its predecessor the Compagnie des Cent Associes, regulated the fur trade to the best of its abilities imposing price points, supporting government sale taxes and combating black market practices. However, by the middle half of the 18th century the fur trade was in a slow decline.


title: New France

text: The natural abundance of furs had passed and it could no longer meet market demand. This eventually resulted in the repeal of the 25 percent sales tax that had previously aimed at curbing the administrative costs New France had accumulated. In addition, dwindling supply increased black market trading. A greater number of indigenous groups and fur traders began circumventing Montreal and New France altogether; many began trading with either British or Dutch merchants to the south.


title: New France

text: By the end of French rule in New France in 1763, the fur trade had significantly lost its importance as the key staple good that supported much of New France's economy for more than the last century. Even so, it did serve as the fundamental force behind the establishment and vast growth of Montreal and the French colony.


title: New France

text: The coureurs des bois were responsible for starting the flow of trade from Montreal, carrying French goods into upper territories while indigenous people were bringing down their furs. The coureurs traveled with intermediate trading tribes, and found that they were anxious to prevent French access to the more distant fur-hunting tribes. Still, the coureurs kept thrusting outwards using the Ottawa River as their initial step upon the journey and keeping Montreal as their starting point. The Ottawa River was significant because it offered a route that was practical for Europeans, by taking the traders northward out of the territory dominated by the Iroquois. It was for this reason that Montreal and the Ottawa River was a central location of indigenous warfare and rivalry.


title: New France

text: Montreal faced difficulties by having too many coureurs out in the woods. The furs coming down were causing an oversupply on the markets of Europe. This challenged the coureurs trade because they so easily evaded controls, monopolies, and taxation, and additionally because the coureurs trade was held to debauch both French and various indigenous groups. The coureur debauched Frenchmen by accustoming them to fully live with indigenous, and indigenous by trading on their desire for alcohol.


title: New France

text: The issues caused a great rift in the colony, and in 1678, it was confirmed by a General Assembly that the trade was to be made in public so as to better assure the safety of the indigenous population. It was also forbidden to take spirits inland to trade with indigenous groups. However these restrictions on the coureurs, for a variety of reasons, never worked. The fur trade remained dependent on spirits, and increasingly in the hands of the coureurs who journeyed north in search of furs.


title: New France

text: As time passed, the Coureurs des bois were partially replaced by licensed fur trading endeavors, and the main canoe travel workers of those endeavors were called voyageurs.


title: New France

text: The two factions, Iroquois and French, were constantly at war with one another until the Great Peace of Montréal in 1701. The relationship between the Iroquois and the French first began in 1609. The relationship between the French and Iroquois began violently. As Samuel De Champlain travelled from the St. Lawrence Valley, accompanied by his Algonquin, Montagnais, and Huron allies, the killing of three Iroquoian chiefs on Lake Champlain was Champlain’s war of fortifying his stance with his fur trade allies. The allices forged were in the interest of trade.


title: New France

text: The French and Algonquins first encountered one another in 1603 after Samuel de Champlain established France's first permanent North American settlement along the St. Lawrence River. In 1610, the Algonquins continued to solidify their relations with the French by guiding Étienne Brûlé into the interiors of Canada.


title: New France

text: The relationship between the Iroquois and the French first began in 1609, where Samuel De Champlain engaged in battle against the Iroquois. Champlain travelled from the St. Lawrence Valley, accompanied by his Algonquin, Montagnais, and Huron allies, to kill three Iroquoian chiefs on Lake Champlain with the first shots of his arquebus. The two factions (Iroquois and French) were constantly at war with one another until the Great Peace of Montréal in 1701.


title: New France

text: The French were interested in exploiting the land through the fur trade as well as the timber trade later on. Despite having tools and guns, the French settlers were dependent on Indigenous people to survive in the difficult climate in this part of North America. Many settlers did not know how to survive through the winter; the Indigenous people showed them how to survive in the New World. They showed the settlers how to hunt for food and to use the furs for clothing that would protect them during the winter months.


title: New France

text: As the fur trade became the dominant economy in the New World, French voyageurs, trappers and hunters often married or formed relationships with Indigenous women. This allowed the French to develop relations with their wives' Indigenous nations, which in turn provided protection and access to their hunting and trapping grounds.


title: New France

text: One specific Indigenous group borne of these relationships are the Métis people, who are descendants of marriages between French men and Indigenous women. Their name originates from an old French term for “person of mixed parentage.” At the beginning of the fur trade, these relationships were encouraged by the French as a way to encourage the First Nations to adopt French culture and solidify alliances, but as the Métis began to emerge as an independent culture around the 1700s, it began to be discouraged by the French. Many Métis families moved to western Canada in response to this, as well as for other reasons, such as fur trading opportunities. One major settlement at this time was in the Red River Valley, strategically placed in a significant area for the fur trade. This was the origin of the modern Métis nation, which was legally recognized by modern Canada as a protected Indigenous group in the Constitution Act, 1982. Its prior legal history has its roots in acts such as the Manitoba Act, 1870, which began to recognize the Métis nation as a separate group with various rights and protections, but was not supported by the vast majority of Métis as it removed many from land that was rightfully theirs.


title: New France

text: The fur trade benefited Indigenous people as well. They traded furs for metal tools and other European-made items that made their lives easier. Tools such as knives, pots and kettles, nets, firearms and hatchets improved the general welfare of indigenous peoples. At the same time, while everyday life became easier, some traditional ways of doing things were abandoned or altered, and while Indigenous people embraced many of these implements and tools, they also were exposed to less vital trade goods, such as alcohol and sugar, sometimes with deleterious effects. The Iroquois, like most tribes, began to rely on the importation of European goods, like firearms, which contributed significantly to a decrease in the beaver population of the Hudson Valley. This decline resulted in the fur trade moving further north, along the St. Lawrence River.


title: New France

text: Since Henry Hudson had claimed Hudson Bay, and the surrounding lands for England in 1611, English colonists had begun expanding their boundaries across what is now the Canadian north beyond the French-held territory of New France. In 1670, King Charles II of England issued a charter to Prince Rupert and "the Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson Bay" for an English monopoly in harvesting furs in Rupert's Land, a portion of the land draining into Hudson Bay. This is the start of the Hudson's Bay Company, ironically aided by French "coureurs des bois", Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers, frustrated with French license rules. Now both France and England were formally in the Canadian fur trade.


title: New France

text: The major commercial importance of the Louisiana Purchase territory was the Mississippi River. New Orleans, the largest and most important city in the territory, was the most commercial city in the United States until the Civil War, with most jobs there being related to trade and shipping; there was little manufacturing. The first commercial shipment to come down the Mississippi River was of deer and bear hides in 1705. The area, always loosely defined in those early times of European claims and settlements, extended as far east as the city that is now Mobile, Alabama, begun by French settlers in 1702.


title: New France

text: The French (later Spanish) Louisiana Territory was owned by France for a number of years before the money-losing territory was transferred to French banker Antoine Crozat in 1713 for 15 years. After losing four times his investment, Crozat gave up his charter in 1717. Control of Louisiana and its 700 inhabitants was given to the Company of the Indies in 1719. The company conducted a major settlement program by recruiting European settlers to locate in the territory. Unemployed persons, convicts and prostitutes were also sent to the Louisiana Territory. After the bankruptcy of the company in 1720, control was returned to the king.


title: New France

text: Louis XV saw little value in Louisiana, and to compensate Spain for its losses in the Seven Years' War, he transferred Louisiana to his cousin Charles III in 1762. Louisiana remained under the control of Spain until it was demanded to be turned over to France by Napoleon. Although Louisiana was property of France by the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, Louisiana continued to be administered by Spain until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Following the American acquisition of the territory, its population tripled between 1803 and Louisiana statehood in 1812.


title: New France

text: Before the arrival of European colonists and explorers, First Nations followed a wide array of mostly animistic religions. During the colonial period, the French settled along the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, specifically Latin Rite Roman Catholics, including a number of Jesuits dedicated to converting the indigenous population; an effort that eventually proved successful.


title: New France

text: The French Roman Catholic Church, which after Champlain's death was the dominant force in New France, wanted to establish a Christian community in the colony. In 1642, they sponsored a group of settlers, led by Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, who founded Ville-Marie, precursor to present-day Montreal, farther up the St. Lawrence. Throughout the 1640s, Jesuit missionaries penetrated the Great Lakes region and converted many of the Huron. The missionaries came into conflict with the Iroquois, who frequently attacked Montreal.


title: New France

text: The presence of Jesuit missionaries in Huron society was nonnegotiable. The Huron relied on French goods to facilitate life and warfare. Because the French would refuse trade to all indigenous societies that denied relations with missionaries, the Huron had more of a propensity towards Christian conversion. The Huron heavily relied on European goods to perform burial ceremonies known as The Huron Feast of the Dead. Trading with the French allowed for larger amounts of decorative goods to be buried during ceremonies as opposed to only a bare minimum. With the growing epidemics and high number of deaths, the Huron could not afford to lose relations with the French, fearing to anger their ancestors.


title: New France

text: Jesuit missionaries explored the Mississippi River, in the territory of the Illinois. Father Jacques Marquette and explorer Louis Jolliet traveled in a small party, starting from Green Bay down the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi River, communicating with the tribes they met en route. Although Spanish trade goods had reached most of the indigenous peoples, these were the first Frenchmen to connect in the area named for the Illinois, including the Kaskaskia. They kept detailed records of what they saw and the people they met, sketching what they could, and mapped the Mississippi River in 1673. Their travels were described as first contacts with the indigenous peoples, though evidence of contact with Spanish from the south was clear.


title: New France

text: Subsequent to the arrival of French children in Quebec in 1634, measles was also brought along with them, which quickly spread among the indigenous peoples. Jesuit priest Jean de Brébeuf described the symptoms as being severe. Brebeuf stated that the fearlessness of the indigenous peoples towards death upon this disease made them perfect candidates for conversion to Christianity. The indigenous peoples believed that if they did not convert to Christianity, they would be exposed to the evil magic of the priests that caused the illness.


title: New France

text: Jesuit missionaries were troubled by the absence of patriarchy in indigenous communities. Indigenous women were highly regarded within their societies and participated in political and military decisions. Jesuits attempted to eliminate the matriarchy and shift the powers of men and women to accommodate those of European societies. "In France, women are to be obedient to their masters, their husbands." Jesuits would attempt to justify this to the indigenous women in hopes to enlighten them on proper European behavior. In response, Indigenous women grew worrisome of the presence of these missionaries fearing they would lose power and freedom within their communities. By 1649, both the Jesuit mission and the Huron society were almost destroyed by Iroquois invasions (see Canadian Martyrs). In 1653, a peace invitation was extended by the Onondaga Nation, one of the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. to New France and an expedition of Jesuits, led by Simon Le Moyne, established Sainte Marie de Ganentaa in 1656. The Jesuits were forced to abandon the mission by 1658, as hostilities with the Iroquois resumed.


title: New France

text: The second article of the charter of the "Compagnie des Cent-Associés" stated that New France could only be Roman Catholic. This resulted in Huguenots facing legal restrictions to enter the colony when Cardinal Richelieu transferred the control of the colony to "Compagnie des Cent-Associés" in 1627. Protestantism was then outlawed in France and all its overseas possessions by the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685. In spite of that, approximately 15,000 Protestants settled in New France by using socioeconomic pretexts while at the same time concealing their religious background.


title: New France

text: The Huguenots (a name used to designate French-Speaking Protestants) were a mercantile group, originating from the coastal cities of North-Western France, and had a significant impact on the early development of New France, especially in the regions of Quebec and Acadia, where many people still hold Huguenot surnames to this day. Huguenots were famous for their large and interconnected trading and communication network that spanned throughout France, and most of her colonies. This network was also known for trading with the Dutch Republic, and the Kingdom of England; two of France’s most important rivals, that also happened to be protestant nations.


title: New France

text: Initially, King Henri IV recognised Protestants as a significant minority within France, and allowed them a certain degree of freedom within their religion. After several years of various skirmishes within Metropolitan France, the Huguenots were deemed to not be "faithful servants of the king", and their mercantile powers stripped, their trading network disbanded, and widespread governmental persuctory policies were enacted both within mainland France and Nouvelle France. In 1661, Louis XVI was able to enact self-rule as his regency ended, and he instituted a variety of anti-protestant conventions throughout the greater French Empire. Under these new rules, Protestant children were forcibly converted to Catholicism, implemented direct governmental jurisdiction over what were formerly Huguenot-controlled trade routes, and labelled the Protestant communities throughout Nouvelle France (specifically Quebec and Acadia) as significant threats to the colonies, as they might sympathise with English Protestants competing in the same areas and trades. Eventually, Protestants were banned from settling in Nouvelle France, and the existing ones were only allowed to "summer" in the colonies, not "winter" there.


title: New France

text: In the early stage of French settlement, legal matters fell within the Governor of New France's purview. Under this arrangement, legal disputes were settled in an incoherent fashion due to the Governor's arbitrariness in issuing verdicts.


title: New France

text: Since 1640, a Seneschal ("sénéchal"), a Judge ("juge d'épée", which literally means 'sword-bearing judge'), and a jurisdiction in Trois-Rivières were created. However, the Seneschal was under the oversight by the Governor, hence the Governor still had rather extensive control over legal matters in New France. In 1651, the Company of New France made the Great Seneschal ("Grand Sénéchal") the chief justice. However, the Island of Montreal had its special Governor at that time, who also administered justice on the Island, and had not handed over justice to the Grand Seneschal until 1652.


title: New France

text: In practice, though, the Great Seneschal was awarded as an honorary title to the son of Jean de Lauson, then Governor of New France; judicial functions were in fact carried out by the Seneschal's deputies. These deputies included such officials as the civil and criminal lieutenant general ("lieutenant général civil et criminel"), the special lieutenant ("lieutenant particulier", acting as assistant royal judge), and the lieutenant fiscal ("lieutenant fiscal", acting as tax magistrate).


title: New France

text: The Civil and Criminal Lieutenant General sat as judge in trials at first instance, whereas appeals would be adjudicated by the Governor, who held the sovereign right to settle final appeals on behalf of the French king. The Great Seneschal also had a magistrate in Trois-Rivières, as well as a bailiff formed by the Society of Priests of Saint Sulpice on the Island of Montreal.


title: New France

text: Apart from judicial responsibilities, the Great Seneschal was also in charge of convening local nobility in New France, as well as issuing declarations of war if necessary. However, such alternative role of the Great Seneschal was much weakened soon after by having the rights to declare war and to administer finances stripped off from the office because the French crown feared that colonial officers held too much authority.


title: New France

text: On 13 October 1663, the royal court replaced the Seneschal Office ("sénéchaussée"). Canada was divided into three districts: the district of Quebec City, the district of Trois-Rivières, and the district of Montreal. Each district had its own separate jurisdiction with a judge appointed by the Crown, known as the civil and criminal lieutenants general. They were responsible for all legal matters, civil and criminal, in each of the districts.


title: New France

text: In addition to the royal judges, there were other judicial officers in each district. The clerk of court (registrar) was responsible for transcribing all court proceedings as well as other documents relevant to each of the cases. The king's attorney ("procureur du roi") was responsible for inquiring into the facts and preparing the case against the accused. In the districts of Quebec City and Montreal, the royal judges had special lieutenants to substitute them whenever they were absent or sick. Feudal courts heard minor cases.


title: New France

text: The reform also brought the Sovereign Council of New France ("Conseil souverain") into existence, which was later renamed the Superior Council ("Conseil supérieur"). The Sovereign Council effectively acted as the functional equivalent of a Council of State ("Conseil d'État") for New France, having the authority to hand down verdicts on final appeal. Initially, the Council convened once every week, and the quorum of the Sovereign Council was seven for criminal matters, or five for civil cases. The council's practices evolved over time. At the Sovereign Council there was a king's attorney-general ("procureur général du roi") in charge of the similar tasks as the district king's attorneys. He was also responsible for supervising the king's attorneys' daily operations as well as execution of royal edicts and regulations passed by the council in their respective districts.


title: New France

text: In 1664, the Custom of Paris ("coutume de Paris") was formally set as the main source of law for civil law in France's overseas empire. All royal judges and king's attorneys in New France had to be thoroughly familiar with this compilation of rules. The Custom governed various civil aspects of the daily life in New France, including property, marriage, inheritance, and so on.


title: New France

text: The Island of Montreal was a special case because its judiciary had been previously held by the Society of St-Sulpice. In 1663, Governor-General of New France Augustin de Saffray de Mésy originally considered appointing Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve the Governor of the Island of Montreal and consolidating a royal jurisdiction on the island, but the plan garnered the St-Sulpicians' disapproval, who held the Island as its own fiefdom and effectively acted as the island's governor. In other words, the Sovereign Council had not been able to seize effective control over the legal matters of the Island; instead, the St-Sulpicians administered justice on the island.


title: New France

text: It was not until 16 September 1666, that the St-Sulpicians finally handed over the justice of the Island of Montreal to the Intendant of New France. In 1693, the French king commanded the replacement of the ecclesiastical courts in Montreal with a royal court composed of one royal judge, with appeals going to the Sovereign Council. The introduction of a royal court on the Montreal Island also resulted in the abolition of the feudal court in the fief of Trois-Rivières (then held by the Jesuits).


title: New France

text: In the Quebec City district, the lower court ("tribunal antérieur") was established in 1664 and had jurisdiction to try cases at first instance, but then it was abolished in 1674. The Sovereign Council appointed trial judges ("juges inférieurs") to adjudicate cases at first instance until the Provostry of Quebec ("prévôté de Québec") was created in May 1677.


title: New France

text: The Provostry of Quebec was located in the Hall of Justice ("palais de justice") in Quebec City and had only one royal judge, also known as the civil and criminal lieutenant general of Quebec City, who heard both civil and criminal cases, as well as district police. Additionally, a court clerk and a king's attorney were appointed to the court; if either of these two officers could not attend the trials due to illness or other untenable circumstances, the Intendant would appoint a temporary substitute.


title: New France

text: In the early stages of French colonization, the execution of criminal justice in New France was rather arbitrary. The Governor of New France served as the judge to the colonists as well as soldiers. He would announce his verdict at the presence of the chiefs of the Company of One Hundred Associates and that would be final.


title: New France

text: After the Sovereign Council was established in Quebec in 1663, the Council carried out criminal justice according to the general ordinances of France. In 1670, the Criminal Ordinance was enacted in New France by order of the French king as a codification of the previous criminal laws passed by the Sovereign Council.


title: New France

text: The ecclesiastical court ("tribunal ecclésiastique", or "Officialité") was a special court for hearing first instance trials on both religious and secular affairs involving members of the Church. It first appeared in around 1660 but was not officially recognized by state authorities for it was not administered by a bishop, until 1684. Appeals from this court lay with the Sovereign Council.


title: New France

text: The court of admiralty was created on 12 January 1717 and was the last judicial body set up in Canada during the French colonial period. The court had a judge (also known as the lieutenant-general of the court) appointed by the French admiralty, a king's attorney, a clerk of court, and one or two bailiffs ("huissiers"). The admiralty court was located in Quebec City and had jurisdiction over all of New France except Louisiana and Louisbourg. The court heard first instance trials on maritime affairs, including commerce and seamen's conduct. During wartime, it also commanded maritime police. Before 1717, the Quebec Provostry performed the duties of the admiralty court.


title: New France

text: Unlike Canada, Acadia's judicial system was somewhat under-developed during the New France period. Prior to 1670, Acadia was in a state of being torn between various European colonists. None of the countries—France, England, the Netherlands—were able to put in place a stable jurisdiction there.


title: New France

text: In 1670, France regained control of Acadia and appointed Mathieu de Goutin as the Civil and Criminal Lieutenant ("lieutenant civil et criminel") of Acadia. Simultaneously, the Governor of Acadia was set up and his job was primarily the defense of Acadia from English invasion. The Civil and Criminal Lieutenant was essentially supervised by the Governor, who held superior judicial authority over the Lieutenant, but for most of the time would let the Lieutenant mediate and decide legal affairs.


title: New France

text: Due to the situation in Acadia as a small settlement of around 399 settlers in 1670–71, vulnerable to foreign invasion, courts were minimal, consisting of only a Civil and Criminal Lieutenant and a king's attorney. There was not an official court in Acadia, although the king's attorney of Acadia performed very similar duties as his counterpart in New France. Yet since Acadia never actually had a court, there was no clerk of court; instead, trials were recorded by a local notary. It is difficult to trace the judicial history of French Acadia as the relevant archives were destroyed in a fire in 1708.


title: New France

text: The presence of settlers, of businesses from several European countries harvesting furs, along with the interests of the indigenous people in this new competition for North American resources set the scene for significant military conflicts among all parties in New France beginning in 1642, and ending with the Seven Years' War, 1756–1763.


title: New France

text: Ville-Marie was a noteworthy site for it was the center of defence against the Iroquois, the point of departure for all western and northern journeys, and the meeting point to which the trading Indians brought their annual furs. This placed Ville-Marie, later known as Montreal, at the forefront against the Iroquois, which resulted in its trade being easily and frequently interrupted. The Iroquois were in alliance with the Dutch and English, which allowed them to interrupt the French fur trade and send the furs down the Hudson River to the Dutch and English traders.


title: New France

text: This also put the Iroquois at warfare against the Hurons, the Algonquians, and any other tribes that were in alliance with the French. If the Iroquois could destroy New France and its Indian allies, they would be able to trade freely and profitably with the Dutch and English on the Hudson River. The Iroquois formally attacked the settlement at today's Quebec City in its foundation year of 1642, and in almost every subsequent year thereafter. A militant theocracy maintained Montreal. In 1653 and 1654, reinforcements arrived at Montreal, which allowed the Iroquois to be halted. In that year the Iroquois made peace with the French.


title: New France

text: Adam Dollard des Ormeaux, a colonist and soldier of New France, was a notable figure regarding the Iroquois attacks against Montreal. The Iroquois soon resumed their assaults against Montreal, and the few settlers of Montreal fell almost completely to hostile Iroquois forces. The Iroquois did not use typical raiding tactics of moving swiftly and silently. Instead, they captured individuals and brought them back to their own territory. Women and children were made a part of the village, and men encountered slow torturous deaths. In the ’60s, warfare changed, and France began to counterattack. Professional French soldiers had arrived in the New World for the first time, and Alexandre de Prouville led them to invade Iroquois territory. In the spring of 1660, Adam Dollard des Ormeaux led a small militia consisting of 16 men from Montreal against a much larger Iroquois force at the Battle of Long Sault on the Ottawa River. They succeeded in turning back the Iroquois invasion and are responsible for saving Montreal from destruction. They were able to take Chief Canaqueese as a prisoner, and in September 1660, the French returned and burned Iroquois homes and crops. Later that Winter, many Iroquois died due to starvation, and the Iroquois finally agreed to peace which lasted roughly twenty years. The encounter between Ormeaux and the Iroquois is of significance because it dissuaded the Iroquois from further attacks against Montreal.


title: New France

text: In 1688, King William's War began and the English and Iroquois launched a major assault on New France, after many years of small skirmishes throughout the English and French territories. New France and the Wabanaki Confederacy were able to thwart New England expansion into Acadia, whose border New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine. King William's War ended in 1697, but a second war (Queen Anne's War) broke out in 1702. Quebec survived the English invasions of both these wars, and during the wars France seized many of the English Hudson's Bay Company fur trading centres on Hudson Bay including York Factory, which the French renamed "Fort Bourbon".


title: New France

text: While Acadia defeated an English invasion attempt during King William's War, the colony was occupied by the British during Queen Anne's War. The final Conquest of Acadia happened in 1710. In 1713, peace came to New France with the Treaty of Utrecht. Although the treaty turned Hudson Bay, Newfoundland and part of Acadia (peninsular Nova Scotia) over to Great Britain, France remained in control of Île Royale (Cape Breton Island) (which also administered Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island)). The northern part of Acadia, what is today New Brunswick and Maine, remained contested territory. Construction of Fortress Louisbourg on Île Royale, a French military stronghold intended to protect the approaches to the St. Lawrence River settlements, began in 1719.


title: New France

text: In Acadia, however, war continued. Father Rale's War (1722–1725) was a series of battles between New England and the Wabanaki Confederacy, who were allied with New France. New France and the Wabanaki Confederacy defended against the expansion of New England settlements into Acadia, whose border New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine. After the New England Conquest of Acadia in 1710, mainland Nova Scotia was under the control of New England, but both present-day New Brunswick and virtually all of present-day Maine remained contested territory between New England and New France. To secure New France's claim to the region, it established Catholic missions among the three largest indigenous villages in the region: one on the Kennebec River (Norridgewock); one further north on the Penobscot River (Penobscot) and one on the Saint John River (Medoctec).


title: New France

text: The war began on two fronts: when New England pushed its way through Maine and when New England established itself at Canso, Nova Scotia. As a result of the war, Maine fell to the New Englanders with the defeat of Father Sébastien Rale at Norridgewock and the subsequent retreat of the indigenous peoples from the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers to St. Francis and Becancour, Quebec.


title: New France

text: Peace lasted in Canada until 1744, when news of the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession (King George's War in North America) reached Fort Louisbourg. The French forces went on the attack first in a failed attempt to capture Annapolis Royal, the capital of British Nova Scotia. In 1745, William Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, led a counterattack on Louisbourg. Both France and New France were unable to relieve the siege, and Louisbourg fell to the British. With the famed Duc d'Anville Expedition, France attempted to retake Acadia and the fortress in 1746 but failed. The fortress was returned to France under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, but the peace treaty, which restored all colonial borders to their pre-war status, did little to end the lingering enmity between France, Britain, and their respective colonies, nor did it resolve any territorial disputes.


title: New France

text: Within Acadia and Nova Scotia, Father Le Loutre's War (1749–1755) began with the British founding of Halifax. During Father Le Loutre's War, New France established three forts along the border of present-day New Brunswick to protect it from a New England attack from Nova Scotia. The war continued until British victory at Fort Beausejour, which dislodged Father Le Loutre from the region, thereby ending his alliance with the Maliseet, Acadians and Mi'kmaq.


title: New France

text: Fort Duquesne, located at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers at the site of present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, guarded the most important strategic location in the west at the time of the Seven Years' War. It was built to ensure that the Ohio River valley remained under French control. A small colonial force from Virginia began a fort here, but a French force under Claude-Pierre Pécaudy de Contrecœur drove them off in April 1754. New France claimed this as part of their colony, and the French were anxious to keep the British from encroaching on it. The French built Fort Duquesne here to serve as a military stronghold and as a base for developing trade and strengthening military alliances with the indigenous peoples of the area.


title: New France

text: In 1755, General Edward Braddock led an expedition against Fort Duquesne, and although they were numerically superior to the French militia and their Indian allies, Braddock's army was routed and Braddock was killed. Later that same year at the Battle of Lake George, the British General William Johnson with a force of 1700 American and Iroquois troops defeated a French force of 2800 French and Canadians and 700 Native Americans led by Baron Dieskau (Military commander of New France).


title: New France

text: The fight for control over Ohio Country led to the French and Indian War, which began as the North American phase of the Seven Years' War (which did not technically begin in Europe until 1756). The war began with the defeat of a Virginia militia contingent led by Colonel George Washington by the French troupes de la marine in the Ohio valley. As a result of that defeat, the British decided to prepare the conquest of Quebec City, the capital of New France. The British defeated France in Acadia in the Battle of Fort Beausejour (1755) and then Île Royale (Cape Breton Island) (which also administered Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) with the Siege of Louisbourg (1758).


title: New France

text: Throughout the war, the British deported the Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies and Europe, which the Acadian militias resisted with assistance from Mi'kmaq and Malisteet forces. The Great Upheaval continued from 1755 to 1764. In 1756, a large force of French, Canadians, and their Native American allies led by the Marquis de Montcalm launched an attack against the key British post at Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario from Fort Frontenac and forced the garrison to surrender. The following year Montcalm with a huge force of 7,200 French and Canadian troops and 2,400 Native Americans laid siege to Fort William Henry on the southern shores of Lake George, and after three weeks of fighting the British commander Monroe surrendered. Montcalm gave him honorable terms to return to England and not to fight for 18 months. And yet, when the British force with civilians was three miles from the fort, the Native American allies massacred about 1,100 of the 1,500 strong force.


title: New France

text: The following year the French had one victory and one defeat. The defeat was at the French fortress city of Louisbourg. The victory was at the strip of land between Lake Champlain and Lake George at the French fortress of Fort Carillon. The British force sent to capture Fort Carillon (held by just 3400 French regulars and marines with almost no militia or indigenous support) was the largest ever seen in America at that time: 16,200 British, American, and Iroquois troops under the command of General James Abercrombie. This battle led the British to suffer 2,200 casualties, several artillery pieces against French losses of around 200 killed or wounded.


title: New France

text: While the British Conquest of Acadia happened in 1710, the French continued to remain a significant force in the region with Fort Beausejour and Fortress Louisbourg. The dominant population in the region remained Acadian, that is to say, not British. In 1755, the British were successful in the Battle of Beausejour and immediately after began the expulsion of the Acadians.


title: New France

text: In the meantime the French continued to explore westwards and expand their trade alliances with indigenous peoples. Fort de la Corne was built in 1753, by Louis de la Corne, Chevalier de la Corne just east of the Saskatchewan River Forks in what is today the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. This was the furthest westward outpost of the French Empire in North America to be established before its fall.


title: New France

text: In 1758, British forces again captured Louisbourg, allowing them to blockade the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. This proved decisive in the war. In 1759, the British besieged Quebec by sea, and an army under General James Wolfe defeated the French under General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in September. The garrison in Quebec surrendered on 18 September, and by the next year New France had been conquered by the British after the attack on Montreal, which had refused to acknowledge the fall of Canada. The last French governor-general of New France, Pierre François de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal, surrendered to British Major General Jeffery Amherst on 8 September 1760. France formally ceded Canada to the British in the Treaty of Paris, signed 10 February 1763.


title: New France

text: The expelled Acadians were initially dispersed across much of eastern North America (including the Thirteen Colonies) and some were sent to France. Many eventually settled in Quebec or Louisiana, while others returned to the regions of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Chéticamp, Nova Scotia and the Magdalen Islands have significant communities. In Louisiana their descendants became known as the Cajuns, a corruption of the French "Acadiens".


title: New France

text: By the mid-1700s the French settlers were well established with a population around 70,000, mainly due to natural increase. The European population had grown slowly under French rule. The British Thirteen Colonies to the south along the Atlantic coast grew in population from natural increase and more new settlers from Europe. By 1760, almost 1.6 million people lived in the British colonies, a ratio of approximately twenty-three to one compared to New France. The population of the New England colonies alone in 1760 was nearly 450,000.


title: New France

text: French culture and religion remained dominant in most of the former territory of New France until the arrival of British settlers led to the later creation of Upper Canada (today Ontario) and New Brunswick. The Louisiana Territory, under Spanish control since the end of the Seven Years' War, remained off-limits to settlement from the thirteen American colonies.


title: New France

text: Twelve years after the British defeated the French, the American Revolutionary War broke out in the Thirteen Colonies. Many French Canadians would take part in the war, including Major Clément Gosselin and Admiral Louis-Philippe de Vaudreuil. After the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, the Treaty of Versailles gave all former British claims in New France below the Great Lakes into the possession of the nascent United States. A Franco-Spanish alliance treaty returned Louisiana to France in 1801, but French leader Napoleon Bonaparte sold it to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, ending French colonial efforts in North America.


title: New France

text: The portions of the former New France that remained under British rule were administered as Upper Canada and Lower Canada, 1791–1841, and then those regions were merged as the Province of Canada during 1841–1867, when the passage of the British North America Act of 1867 instituted home rule for most of British North America and established French-speaking Quebec (the former Lower Canada) as one of the original provinces of the Dominion of Canada. The former French colony of Acadia was first designated the Colony of Nova Scotia but shortly thereafter the Colony of New Brunswick, which then included Prince Edward Island, was split off from it.


title: New France

text: In Canada, the legacy of New France can be seen in the enduring Francophone identity of its descendants, which has led to institutional bilingualism in Canada as a whole.


title: New France

text: The only remnant of the former colonial territory of New France that remains under French control to this day is the French overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon (French: Collectivité territoriale de Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon), consisting of a group of small islands off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.


title: New France

text: The Treaty of Utrecht resulted in the relinquishing of French claims to mainland Acadia, the Hudson Bay and Newfoundland, and the establishment of the colony of Île Royale, now called Cape Breton Island, where the French built the Fortress of Louisbourg.


title: New France

text: Acadia had a difficult history, with the Great Upheaval, remembered on July 28 each year since 2003. The descendants are dispersed in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, in Maine and Louisiana in the United States, with small populations in Chéticamp, Nova Scotia and the Magdalen Islands.


title: New France

text: The Conquest (referring to the fall of New France to the British, and specifically the events of 1759–60) has always been a central and contested theme of Canadian memory. Some Anglophone historians portray the Conquest as a victory for "British military, political and economic superiority" and argue that it ultimately brought benefits to the French settlers. However, Cornelius Jaenen notes that French-Canadian historians remain strongly divided on the subject. One group sees it as a highly negative economic, political and ideological disaster that threatened a way of life with materialism and Protestantism. At the other pole are those historians who see the positive benefit of enabling the preservation of language, and religion and traditional customs under British rule. French-Canadian debates have escalated since the 1960s, as the conquest is seen as a pivotal moment in the history of Québec's nationalism. Francophone historian Jocelyn Létourneau suggested in 2009, that today, "1759 does not belong primarily to a past that we might wish to study and understand, but, rather, to a present and a future that we might wish to shape and control."


title: New France

text: The enduring contestation of the legacy of the Conquest can be exemplified by an episode in 2009, when an attempt to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the battle of the Plains of Abraham was cancelled. The explanation for the cancellation was that it was over security concerns, but activist Sylvain Rocheleau stated, "[I think] they had to cancel the event because it was insulting a majority of Francophones. They had to cancel it because it was a bad idea.".


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czech composer. Dvořák 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. Dvořák's style has been described as "the fullest recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them".


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák displayed his musical gifts at an early age, being an apt violin student from age six. The first public performances of his works were in Prague in 1872 and, with special success, in 1873, when he was 31 years old. Seeking recognition beyond the Prague area, he submitted a score of his First Symphony to a prize competition in Germany, but did not win, and the unreturned manuscript was lost until it was rediscovered many decades later. In 1874, he made a submission to the Austrian State Prize for Composition, including scores of two further symphonies and other works. Although Dvořák was not aware of it, Johannes Brahms was the leading member of the jury and was highly impressed. The prize was awarded to Dvořák in 1874 and again in 1876 and in 1877, when Brahms and the prominent critic Eduard Hanslick, also a member of the jury, made themselves known to him. Brahms recommended Dvořák to his publisher, Simrock, who soon afterward commissioned what became the "Slavonic Dances", Op. 46. These were highly praised by the Berlin music critic Louis Ehlert in 1878, the sheet music (of the original piano 4-hands version) had excellent sales, and Dvořák's international reputation was launched at last.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák's first piece of a religious nature, his setting of Stabat Mater, was premiered in Prague in 1880. It was very successfully performed in London in 1883, leading to many other performances in the United Kingdom and United States. In his career, Dvořák made nine invited visits to England, often conducting performances of his own works. His Seventh Symphony was written for London. Visiting Russia in March 1890, he conducted concerts of his own music in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In 1891, Dvořák was appointed as a professor at the Prague Conservatory. In 1890–91, he wrote his "Dumky Trio", one of his most successful chamber music pieces.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1892, Dvořák moved to the United States and became the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City. The President of the National Conservatory of Music in America, Jeannette Thurber, offered Dvořák an annual salary of $15,000 – an incredibly lavish sum for the era (), twenty-five times what he was paid at the Prague Conservatory. While in the United States, Dvořák wrote his two most successful orchestral works: the Symphony "From the New World", which spread his reputation worldwide, and his Cello Concerto, one of the most highly regarded of all cello concerti.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In the summer of 1893, Dvořák moved from New York City to Spillville, Iowa, following the advice of his secretary, J.J. Kovarík. Dvořák had originally planned to come back to Bohemia, but Spillville was made up of mostly Czech immigrants, and thus he felt less homesick; Dvořák referred to it as his "summer Vysoka." This is where he wrote his most famous piece of chamber music, his String Quartet in F major, Op. 96, which was later nicknamed the "American Quartet". Shortly after his time in Iowa, Dvořák extended his contract at the National Conservatory for another two years. However, the economic crisis of April 1893 resulted in Thurber's husband's loss of income, and directly influenced the National Conservatory's funding. Shortfalls in payment of his salary, along with increasing recognition in Europe and an onset of homesickness, led him to leave the United States and return to Bohemia in 1895.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: All of Dvořák's nine operas, except his first, have librettos in Czech and were intended to convey the Czech national spirit, as were some of his choral works. By far the most successful of the operas is "Rusalka". Among his smaller works, the seventh "Humoresque" and the song "Songs My Mother Taught Me" are also widely performed and recorded. He has been described as "arguably the most versatile... composer of his time".


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The Dvořák Prague International Music Festival is a major series of concerts held annually to celebrate Dvořák's life and works.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák was born in Nelahozeves, near Prague, in the Austrian Empire, and was the eldest son of František Dvořák (1814–94) and his wife, Anna, née Zdeňková (1820–82). František worked as an innkeeper, a professional player of the zither, and a butcher. Anna was the daughter of Josef Zdeněk, the bailiff of the Prince of Lobkowicz. Anna and František married on 17 November 1840. Dvořák was the first of 14 children, eight of whom survived infancy. Dvořák was baptized as a Roman Catholic in the village's church of St. Andrew. Dvořák's years in Nelahozeves nurtured his strong Christian faith and the love for his Bohemian heritage that so strongly influenced his music. In 1847, Dvořák entered primary school and was taught to play violin by his teacher Joseph Spitz. He showed early talent and skill, playing in a village band and in church. František was pleased with his son's gifts. At the age of 13, through the influence of his father, Dvořák was sent to Zlonice to live with his uncle Antonín Zdenĕk in order to learn the German language. His first composition, the "Forget-Me-Not Polka in C (Polka pomněnka)" was written possibly as early as 1855.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák took organ, piano, and violin lessons from his German-language teacher Antonín Liehmann. Liehmann also taught the young boy music theory and introduced him to the composers of the time; Dvořák had much regard for Liehmann despite his teacher's violent temper. Liehmann was the church organist in Zlonice and sometimes let Antonín play the organ at services. Dvořák took further organ and music theory lessons at Česká Kamenice with Franz Hanke, who encouraged his musical talents even further and was more sympathetic. At the age of 16, through the urging of Liehmann and Zdenĕk, František allowed his son to become a musician, on the condition that the boy should work toward a career as an organist. After leaving for Prague in September 1857, Dvořák entered the city's Organ School, studying singing with Josef Zvonař, theory with František Blažek, and organ with Joseph Foerster. The latter was not only a professor at the Prague Conservatory, but also a composer for the organ; his son Josef Bohuslav Foerster became a better known composer. Dvořák also took an additional language course to improve his German and worked as an "extra" violist in numerous bands and orchestras, including the orchestra of the St. Cecilia Society. Dvořák graduated from the Organ School in 1859,


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: ranking second in his class. He applied unsuccessfully for a position as an organist at St. Henry's Church, but remained undaunted in pursuing a musical career.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1858, he joined Karel Komzák's orchestra, with whom he performed in Prague's restaurants and at balls. The high professional level of the ensemble attracted the attention of Jan Nepomuk Maýr, who engaged the whole orchestra in the Bohemian Provisional Theater Orchestra. Dvořák played viola in the orchestra beginning in 1862. Dvořák could hardly afford concert tickets, and playing in the orchestra gave him a chance to hear music, mainly operas. In July 1863, Dvořák played in a program devoted to the German composer Richard Wagner, who conducted the orchestra. Dvořák had had "unbounded admiration" for Wagner since 1857. In 1862, Dvořák had begun composing his first string quartet. In 1864, Dvořák agreed to share the rent of a flat located in Prague's Žižkov district with five other people, who also included violinist Mořic Anger and Karel Čech, who later became a singer. In 1866, Maýr was replaced as chief conductor by Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák was making about $7.50 a month. The constant need to supplement his income pushed him to give piano lessons. It was through these piano lessons that he met his future wife. He originally fell in love with his pupil and colleague from the Provisional Theater, Josefína Čermáková, for whom he apparently composed the song-cycle "Cypress Trees". However, she never returned his love and ended up marrying another man.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1873 Dvořák married Josefina's younger sister, Anna Čermáková (1854–1931). They had nine children – Otakar (1874–1877), Josefa (1875–1875), Růžena (1876–1877), Otýlie (1878–1905), Anna (1880–1923), Magdalena (1881–1952), Antonín (1883–1956), Otakar (1885–1961) and Aloisie (1888–1967). In 1898 his daughter Otýlie married his student, the composer Josef Suk. His son Otakar wrote a book about him.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák called his String Quintet in A minor (1861) his Opus 1, and his First String Quartet (1862) his Opus 2, although the chronological Burghauser Catalogue numbers these as B.6 and B.7, showing five earlier compositions without opus numbers. In the early 1860s, Dvořák also made his first symphonic attempts, some of which he self-critically burned. The manuscript of a symphony in C minor without opus number, B.9, composed in 1865, was preserved. This symphony has come to be numbered as Dvořák's First (see under "Works"). His first composing attempts passed without critical reception or public performances. His compositions up through 1870, according to the Burghauser Catalogue either had no known premieres, or were premiered in 1888 or later. For example, the Third String Quartet, B.18, was written in about 1869 but first published posthumously in 1964 and premiered in 1969. In 1870, he composed his first opera, "Alfred", over the course of five months from May to October. Its overture was first publicly performed as late as 1905, and the full opera only in 1938.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1871 Dvořák left the Provisional Theatre orchestra to have more time for composing. Up through 1871 Dvořák only gave opus numbers up to 5 among his first 26 compositions. 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 L. Procházka). The opera "The King and the Charcoal Burner" was returned to Dvořák from the Provisional Theatre and said to be unperformable. Its overture was premiered in 1872 in a Philharmonic concert conducted by Bedřich Smetana, but the full opera with the original score was performed once in 1929, and not heard again until a concert performance in September 2019 at the Dvořák Prague International Music Festival. Clapham says Dvořák realized he had gone to "extremes in attempting to follow the example of Wagner". In 1873–74, he reset "the King and Charcoal Burner libretto entirely afresh, in a totally different manner", without using "anything from the ill-fated earlier version". The alternate opera, called "King and Charcoal Burner II", B.42, was premiered in Prague in 1874.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: On leaving the National Theater Orchestra after his marriage, Dvořák secured the job of organist at St. Vojtěch, also called St. Adalbert's, Church in Prague under Josef Foerster, his former teacher at the Organ School. The job paid "a mere pittance", but it was "a welcome addition for the young couple". Despite these circumstances, Dvořák still managed to compose a substantial body of music around this time.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In November 1872, Dvořák's Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 5, was performed in Prague, by a "splendid team of players" organized by Procházka. It was his first piece played in a concert. In March 1873, his Czech patriotic cantata "The Heirs of the White Mountain" was performed by the Prague Hlahol Choral Society 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". Dvořák's compositions were first coming to be recognized in Prague.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: When Dvořák turned age 33 in 1874, he remained almost unknown as a composer outside the area of Prague. That year, he applied for and won the Austrian State Prize ("Stipendium") for composition, awarded in February 1875 by a jury consisting of the critic Eduard Hanslick, Johann Herbeck, director of the State Opera, and Johannes Brahms. It seems that Brahms had only recently joined the jury, as he was not on it during the calendar year of 1874, according to Hanslick. Hanslick had first-hand knowledge, as a continuing member of the jury


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: (from at least 1874 to 1877). Nevertheless, Brahms had time and opportunity to appreciate Dvořák's 1874 submission. Botstein says that the jury's purpose was "to award financial support to talented composers in need" in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The jury received a "massive submission" from Dvořák: "fifteen works including two symphonies, several overtures and a song cycle". Brahms was "visibly overcome" by the "mastery and talent" of Dvořák. The two symphonies were Dvořák's third and fourth, both of which had been premiered in Prague in the spring of 1874.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Clapham 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." It says he had not yet owned a piano. Before being married, he had lodged with five other men, one of whom owned a small "spinet" piano.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1875, the year his first son was born, Dvořák composed his second string quintet, his 5th Symphony, Piano Trio No. 1, and Serenade for Strings in E. He again entered but this time did not win the Austrian State Prize. He did win it in 1876, and finally felt free to resign his position as an organist. In 1877, he wrote the "Symphonic Variations", and Ludevít Procházka conducted its premiere in Prague.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák entered the Austrian Prize competition again in 1877, submitting his Moravian Duets and other music, possibly his Piano Concerto. He did not learn the outcome until December. Then, he received a personal letter from the music critic Eduard Hanslick, who had also been on the juries awarding the prizes. The letter not only notified Dvořák that he had again won the prize, but made known to him for the first time that Brahms and Hanslick had been on the jury. The letter conveyed an offer of friendly assistance of the two in making Dvořák's music known outside his Czech motherland. Within the month December 1877, Dvořák wrote his String Quartet No. 9 in D minor and dedicated it to Brahms. Both Brahms and Hanslick had been much impressed by the Moravian Duets, and Brahms recommended them to his publisher, Simrock, who published them with success. Having in mind Brahms's well-received Hungarian Dances, Simrock commissioned Dvořák to write something of the same nature. Dvořák submitted his Slavonic Dances, Op. 46 in 1878, at first for piano four hands, but when requested by Simrock, also in an orchestral version. These were an immediate and great success. On 15 December 1878, the leading music critic Louis Ehlert published a review of the Moravian Duets and Slavonic Dances in the Berlin "Nationalzeitung", saying that the "Dances" would make their way "round the world" and "a heavenly naturalness flows through this music". "There was a run on the German music shops for the dances and duets of this hitherto... unknown composer." The dances were played in 1879 in concerts in France, England, and the United States. Later Simrock requested further Slavonic Dances, which Dvořák supplied in his Op. 72, 1886.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1879 Dvořák wrote his String Sextet. Simrock showed the score to the leading violinist Joseph Joachim, who with others premiered it in November of that year. Joachim became a "chief champion" of Dvořák's chamber music. In that same year, Dvořák also wrote his Violin Concerto. In December, he dedicated the piece to Joachim and sent him the score. The next spring the two discussed the score and Dvořák revised it extensively, but Joachim was still not comfortable with it. 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. Twice later, Joachim was scheduled to play the concerto, but both times the arrangements fell through and he never did play it.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Hans Richter asked Dvořák to compose his Symphony No. 6 for the Vienna Philharmonic, intending to premiere it in December 1880. 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". Adolf Čech therefore conducted the premiere of the symphony at a concert of the "Philharmonia" society (in Czech: "spolek Filharmonie", predecessor of the Czech Philharmonic) on 25 March 1881, in Prague. Richter did eventually conduct the piece in London in 1882 and always retained an interest in Dvořák's compositions.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák's Stabat Mater (1880) was performed and very well received at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 10 March 1883, conducted by Joseph Barnby. The success "sparked off a whole series of performances in England and the United States", a year ahead of appreciation in Germany and Austria. Dvořák was invited to visit Britain where he appeared to great acclaim in 1884. The London Philharmonic Society commissioned Dvořák to conduct concerts in London, and his performances were well received there. In response to the commission, Dvořák wrote his Symphony No. 7 and conducted its premiere at St. James's Hall on 22 April 1885. On a visit later in 1885, Dvořák presented his cantata The Spectre's Bride, in a concert on 27 August. He had arrived a week early to conduct rehearsals of the chorus of 500 voices and orchestra of 150. 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." Dvořák visited Britain at least eight times in total, conducting his own works there. 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). Richter wrote to Dvořák of the London performance, "at the hundreds of concerts I have conducted during my life, no new work has been as successful as yours."


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: 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". He heartily thanked Richter for his "courage and devoted sympathy". In 1890, influenced by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Dvořák also visited Russia, and conducted performances of his music in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1891, Dvořák received an honorary degree from the University of Cambridge, and was offered a position at the Prague Conservatory as professor of composition and instrumentation. At first he refused the offer, but then later accepted; this change of mind was seemingly a result of a quarrel with his publisher Simrock over payment for his Eighth Symphony. Dvořák's Requiem was premiered later that year in Birmingham at the Triennial Music Festival.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1891 the Bohemian String Quartet, later called the Czech Quartet, was founded, with Karel Hoffmann, first violin, Josef Suk, second violin, Oskar Nedbal, viola, and Otakar Berger, cello. It is said that Nedbal and Suk had been two of Dvořák's "most promising" students at the Conservatory and took the initiative in founding the Quartet. As of 1891 Dvořák had written 11 string quartets, six of which had been premiered, and these were available as part of the repertory of the Quartet on tour, as were the two quartets of Smetana.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: From 1892 to 1895, Dvořák was the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. He began at a then-staggering $15,000 annual salary. Emanuel Rubin describes the Conservatory and Dvořák's time there. The Conservatory had been founded by Jeannette Thurber, a wealthy and philanthropic woman, who made it open to women and black students as well as white men, which was unusual for the times. Dvořák's original contract provided for three hours a day of work, including teaching and conducting, six days a week, with four months' vacation each summer. The Panic of 1893, a severe economic depression, depleted the assets of the Thurber family and other patrons of the Conservatory. In 1894, Dvořák's salary was cut to $8,000 per year and moreover was paid only irregularly. The Conservatory was located at 126–128 East 17th Street, but was demolished in 1911 and replaced by what is today a high school.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák's main goal in America was to discover "American Music" and engage in it, much as he had used Czech folk idioms within his music. Shortly after his arrival in America in 1892, Dvořák wrote a series of newspaper articles reflecting on the state of American music. He supported the concept that African-American and Native American music should be used as a foundation for the growth of American music. He felt that through the music of Native Americans and African-Americans, Americans would find their own national style of music. Here Dvořák met Harry Burleigh, who later became one of the earliest African-American composers. Burleigh introduced Dvořák to traditional African-American spirituals.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In the winter and spring of 1893, Dvořák was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to write Symphony No. 9, "From the New World", which was premiered under the baton of Anton Seidl, to tumultuous applause. Clapham writes that "without question this was one of the greatest triumphs, and very possibly the greatest triumph of all that Dvořák experienced" in his life, and when the Symphony was published it was "seized on by conductors and orchestras" all over the world.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Two months before leaving for America, Dvořák had hired as secretary Josef Jan Kovařík, who had just finished violin studies at the Prague Conservatory and was about to return to his home in the United States. There he continued to serve as Dvořák's secretary and lived with the Dvořák family. He had come from the Czech-speaking community of Spillville, Iowa, where his father Jan Josef Kovařík was a schoolmaster. Dvořák decided to spend the summer of 1893 in Spillville, along with all his family. While there he composed the String Quartet in F (the "American") and the String Quintet in E major. Back in New York that autumn, he composed his Sonatina for violin and piano. He also conducted a performance of his Eighth Symphony at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago that same year.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In the winter of 1894–95, Dvořák wrote his Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, B. 191, completed in February 1895. However, due to homesickness, his partially unpaid salary, 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. He informed Thurber that he was leaving. Dvořák and his wife left New York before the end of the spring term, with no intention of returning.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák's New York home was located at 327 East 17th Street, near the intersection of what is today called Perlman Place.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: It was in this house that both the B minor Cello Concerto and the New World Symphony were written within a few years. Despite protests, from Czech President Václav Havel amongst 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. In 2017, this residence was converted into a homeless shelter. To honor Dvořák, a statue of him was erected in nearby Stuyvesant Square.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Brahms continued to try to "clear a path for" Dvořák, "the only contemporary whom he considered really worthy". While Dvořák was in America, Simrock was still publishing his music in Germany, and Brahms corrected proofs for him. Dvořák said it was hard to understand why Brahms would "take on the very tedious job of proofreading. I don't believe there is another musician of his stature in the whole world who would do such a thing."


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák returned from the United States on 27 April 1895 with his wife and Otakar Berger, and took care to avoid spreading the news about his return. However, after a performance of "Dimitrij" at the National Theater on 19 May, Dvořák fled to the family country cottage in Vysoká. Dvořák's first love and later sister-in-law, Josefina Kaunitzová, née Čermáková, died in May 1895. He and she had maintained friendly relations over the years. After her death he revised the coda of his Cello Concerto in her memory. During Dvořák's final years, he concentrated on composing opera and chamber music. In November 1895, he resumed his professorship at the Prague Conservatory. Between 1895 and 1897, he completed his string quartets in A major and G major, and also worked on the cycle of symphonic poems inspired by the collection "Kytice" by Karel Jaromír Erben. As seen in Burghauser's 1960 Catalogue, Dvořák wrote his five Symphonic Poems in 1896, but after that completed few works per year, mainly operas: "Jakobín" in 1896, nothing in 1897, only "The Devil and Kate" in 1898–1899, "Rusalka" in 1900, two songs and "Recitatives" in 1900–1901, and finally the opera "Armida" in 1902–1903. "Rusalka" became the most popular of all Dvořák's ten operas and gained an international reputation (below under Works, Operas).


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1896 he visited London for the last time to conduct the premiere of his Cello Concerto in B minor by the London Philharmonic. Also in 1896, Brahms tried to persuade Dvořák, who had several children, to move to Vienna. Brahms said he had no dependents and "If you need anything, my fortune is at your disposal". Clapham writes "Dvořák was deeply moved and tears came to his wife's eyes, but it was quite impossible for him, a Czech, to contemplate leaving Bohemia." Brahms himself had little time left to live, as he died 3 April 1897. Also, Brahms hoped to gain an ally in Vienna to "counterbalance the influence of" Bruckner.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: On 25 March 1904 Dvořák had to leave a rehearsal of "Armida" because of illness. The first Czech Musical Festival, in April 1904, had "a programme consisting almost entirely" of Dvořák's music (Leoš Janáček was disappointed that none of his music was performed.) "Seventy-six choral associations" from all over Bohemia gathered in Prague, and "sixteen thousand singers" sang Dvořák's oratorio "Saint Ludmila". "Thousands of listeners celebrated" the symphony "From the New World". Dvořák himself was forced by illness to "take to his bed" and so was unable to attend.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák had an "attack of influenza" on 18 April and died on 1 May 1904, of an undiagnosed cause following five weeks of illness, at the age of 62, leaving many unfinished works. His funeral service was held on 5 May, and his remains were buried in the Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague, beneath a bust by Czech sculptor Ladislav Šaloun.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: 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. As the basis for his works, Dvořák frequently used Slavic folk dance forms including the skočná; the Bohemian furiant, sousedská, and špacirka; the Slovak odzemek; the Polish mazurka and polonaise; the Yugoslav Kolo; and folk song forms of Slavic peoples, including the Ukrainian dumka. His 16 Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, which first brought him a wide reputation, and Op. 72, include at least one of each of these forms. He also wrote an orchestral "Polonaise" (1879). He named the third movement of his 6th Symphony as "Scherzo (Furiant)". His Dumky Trio is one of his best-known chamber works, and is named for the Dumka, a traditional Slavic and Polish genre. His major works reflect his heritage and love for his native land. Dvořák followed in the footsteps of Bedřich Smetana, the creator of the modern Czech musical style.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák had been an admirer of Wagner's music since 1857. Late in life, he said that Wagner "was so great a genius that he was capable of doing things that were beyond the reach of other composers". Wagner especially influenced Dvořák's operas, but also some orchestral pieces. According to Clapham, the theme of the Andante Sostenuto from his fourth symphony "could almost have come directly out of "Tannhäuser"".


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: From 1873 on, Dvořák's style was "moving steadily in the direction of classical models". 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. As the article was specifically on Schubert, three years in advance of the centennial of his birth, it seems Dvořák had a special predilection toward Schubert.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák wrote in a variety of forms: his nine symphonies generally conform to classical models, but he also composed the new symphonic poems. Many of his works show the influence of Czech folk music rhythms and melodic shapes. Amongst them are the two sets of Slavonic Dances, the "Symphonic Variations", and the majority of his songs. The echoes of such influence are also found in his major choral works. Dvořák wrote operas (of which the best known is "Rusalka"), serenades for string orchestra and wind ensemble, chamber music (including a number of string quartets and quintets), and piano music.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: A large number of Dvořák's works were given opus numbers, but not always in the order in which they were written or published. 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. In other cases, Dvořák deliberately assigned lower opus numbers to new works to be able to sell them outside contract obligations to his publishers. An example is the "Czech Suite" which Dvořák didn't want to sell to Simrock, and had published with Schlesinger as Op. 39 instead of Op. 52. In this way, the same opus number was given to more than one of Dvořák's work; for example, the opus number 12 was assigned successively to the opera "King and Charcoal Burner" (1871), the Concert Overture in F (1871, derived from the opera), the String Quartet No. 6 in A minor (1873), the Furiant in G minor for piano (1879), and the Dumka in C minor for piano (1884). In other cases, a work was given as many as three different opus numbers by different publishers.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: All of Dvořák's works were catalogued chronologically by Jarmil Burghauser. As an example, in the Burghauser catalogue, the "New World Symphony", Op. 95, is B.178. Scholars today often refer to Dvořák's works by their B numbers (for Burghauser), partly because many early works do not have opus numbers. References to the traditional opus numbers are still common because of their historical continuity with earlier scores and printed programs. The opus numbers remain more likely to appear in printed performance programs.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: During Dvořák's life, only five of his symphonies were widely known. The first one published was the sixth, dedicated to Hans Richter. After Dvořák's death, research uncovered four unpublished symphonies. The manuscript of the first one had even been lost to the composer himself. This led to the situation in which the "New World Symphony" has successively been called the 5th, 8th and 9th. The modern chronological numbering system is used here.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: With their lyrical style and accessibility to the listener, Dvořák's symphonies seem to derive from the Schubertian tradition; but, as Taruskin suggests, the difference was Dvořák's use of cyclic form, especially in his later symphonies and concertos, where he "occasionally recycled themes... to a degree which lent his works a tinge of secret 'programmaticism'".


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 3, was written in 1865 when Dvořák was 24 years old. It was later subtitled "The Bells of Zlonice", in reference to the time Dvořák spent in the village of Zlonice, and in the church there, between the age of 13 and 16. Like the Symphony No. 2 in B major, Op. 4, also in 1865, despite touches of originality, it did not remain in the standard symphonic repertory.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Symphony No. 3 in E major, Op. 10 (c. 1873), shows the impact of Dvořák's acquaintance with the music of Richard Wagner. This influence is less evident in Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 13, except for the start of the second movement.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Symphony No. 5 in F major, Op. 76, and Symphony No. 6 in D major, Op. 60, are largely pastoral in nature. The Sixth, published in 1880, shows a resemblance to the Symphony No. 2 of Brahms, particularly in the outer movements, but not so much in the third-movement furiant, a vivid Czech dance. This was the symphony that made Dvořák internationally known as a symphonic composer.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Symphony No. 7 in D minor of 1885, Op. 70, is highly regarded by critics and musicologists; 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".


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88, is characterized by a warmer and more optimistic tone. Karl Schumann (in booklet notes for a recording of all the symphonies by Rafael Kubelík) compares it to the works of Gustav Mahler.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, is also known by its subtitle, "From the New World", or as the "New World Symphony". Dvořák wrote it between January and May 1893, while he was in New York. At the time of its first performance, he claimed that he used elements from American music such as spirituals and Native American music in this work, but he later denied this. Neil Armstrong took a recording of the "New World Symphony" to the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, and in 2009 it was voted the favourite symphony in a poll run by ABC Classic FM in Australia.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Many conductors have recorded cycles of the symphonies, including Gustavo Dudamel, Karel Ančerl, István Kertész, Rafael Kubelík, Otmar Suitner, Libor Pešek, Zdeněk Mácal, Václav Neumann, Witold Rowicki, Jiří Bělohlávek, and Neeme Järvi.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Adolf Čech premiered more of Dvořák's symphonies than anyone else. He conducted the first performances of Nos. 2, 5 and 6; the composer premiered Nos. 7 and 8; Bedřich Smetana led Nos. 3 and 4; Anton Seidl conducted No. 9; and Milan Sachs premiered No. 1.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Franz Liszt invented the symphonic poem, never employed by more conservative Romantic composers such as Brahms.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák wrote five symphonic poems, all in 1896–1897 with sequential opus numbers: "The Water Goblin", Op. 107; "The Noon Witch", Op. 108; "The Golden Spinning Wheel", Op. 109; "The Wild Dove", Op. 110; and "A Hero's Song", Op. 111. The first four of poems are based upon ballads from the collection "Kytice" by the Czech folklorist Karel Jaromír Erben. "A Hero's Song" is based on a program of Dvořák's devising and is believed to be autobiographical.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: To Dvořák's main choral works belong his setting of Stabat Mater (the longest extant setting of that text), his Requiem, his setting of the Te Deum and his Mass in D major.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The Stabat Mater, Op. 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. The inspiration for creating this piece was the death of the composer's daughter, Josefa.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Antonín Dvořák composed his Requiem in 1890, at the beginning of the peak period of his career. Dvořák was deeply religious, and this work reflects his faith and spirituality. The premiere took place on 9 October 1891 in Birmingham, conducted by Dvořák himself, and was "very successful". It had an outstanding success in Boston 30 November 1892: "the composer was frequently applauded between numbers and given a most enthusiastic ovation at the end.". In Vienna it was greeted, belatedly, in 1901: "The Vienna performance in March 1901 was a triumph of Dvořák's music, as if the Viennese public wished thereby to make up for their earlier, sometimes cool reception of his works."


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The Te Deum, Op. 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). It was composed in 1892 and dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America. 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. Te Deum is more intimate than the Stabat Mater and Requiem. It was premiered at Dvořák's first concert in New York on 21 October 1892.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The Mass in D major (first numbered Op. 76, then Op. 86) was originally intended for organ, solo voices and small choir. The work was finalized in 1892 when, in response to a request from the Novello publishers of London, Dvořák arranged his Mass for a symphony orchestra.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The oratorio "Saint Ludmila" was a huge success in Bohemia and Moravia, sung at events in Dvořák's honor in 1901 and 1904. The piece had considerable success in England in October 1886, with an audience on the 15th "in raptures... the critics praised the music in the warmest terms", and on the 29th, there was a "large and equally enthusiastic audience, and once again the critics were full of praise", but the libretto's translation from Czech into English was "regarded on all sides as unsatisfactory".


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The cantata "The Spectre's Bride", Op. 69, B. 135, performed in 1885 at the Birmingham, England, Musical Festival, was the greatest success to that point in Dvořák's career.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The critic Harold C. Schonberg described "an attractive Piano Concerto in G minor with a rather ineffective piano part, a beautiful Violin Concerto in A minor, and a supreme Cello Concerto in B minor". All the concerti are in the classical three-movement form.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G minor, Op. 33 was the first of three concerti (for solo instrument and orchestra) that Dvořák composed, but is perhaps the least known of the three.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 53 was written in 1878 for the great Joseph Joachim, whom Dvořák had met and admired. It was finished in 1879, but Joachim was skeptical of the work. The concerto was premiered in 1883 in Prague by the violinist František Ondříček, who also gave its first performances in Vienna and London.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B minor, Op. 104 was the final concerto to be composed. He wrote it in 1894–1895 for his friend Hanuš Wihan. Wihan and others had asked for a cello concerto for some time, but Dvořák refused, stating that the cello was a fine orchestral instrument but completely insufficient for a solo concerto. Dvořák composed the concerto in New York while serving as the Director of the National Conservatory. In 1894, Victor Herbert, who was also teaching at the Conservatory, had written his Second Cello Concerto op. 30 and presented it several times that year, including its successful premiere with the New York Philharmonic under Anton Seidl. Dvořák attended at least two performances of Herbert's cello concerto and was inspired to fulfill Wihan's request for a cello concerto. Dvořák's concerto premiered in London on 16 March 1896, with the English cellist Leo Stern. The reception was "enthusiastic". Brahms said of the work: "Had I known that one could write a cello concerto like this, I would have written one long ago!" Agreeing with Schonberg, the cellist and author Robert Battey wrote "I believe it to be the greatest of all cello concertos...an opinion shared by most cellists". A compiler of discographies of Dvořák's music wrote that his is the "king" of cello concertos.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1865, early in his career, Dvořák had composed a Violoncello concerto in A major with Piano accompaniment, B. 10. Günter Raphael in 1925–1929 produced a revised and orchestrated version. Dvořák's cataloguer Jarmil Burghauser made another orchestration and abridgement, published in 1975.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: A viola player himself, Dvořák felt a natural affinity to writing for strings. His chamber work is heavily inspired by American folk culture, while also maintaining his Czech roots. Over a period of thirty years, Dvořák composed over forty chamber music works.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In 1860, just after he completed his education at the Prague Organ School, Dvořák composed his String Quintet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 1. Two more would follow, of which the String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 77 from early 1875, is noteworthy for the use of a double bass. This quintet was written towards the end of the composer's transitional phase, incorporating a thematic density to his works. This quintet is characterized by delicate operetta style uncommon in his instrumental work. The extension of a variation to all section is reminiscent of his symphonic literature. 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. The String Quintet No. 3 in E major, Op. 97, with a second viola added, was written near the end of his American period in 1893, when he spent a summer holiday in Spillville, Iowa.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In the 1880s Dvořák made a list of his destroyed compositions, including string quartets in B-flat, D and E minor of 1868–70. Dvořák destroyed these compositions during his "mad period" only after copies had already been printed. The number of errors in the parts makes it unlikely that they were ever played. Dvořák kept the manuscripts of these quartets but did not give them opus numbers. They are noted to have numbers B.17, B.18, and B.19 in the Burghauser catalog and show the strong influence of the music of Richard Wagner. The second, third, and fourth quartets illustrate Dvořák's progress as a composer. He demonstrates understanding of highly developed musical language in his D major quartet, shaping the melody of the Slav freedom song "Hej Slovane" ('Hey, Slavs!') in a variation style. The quartet in E minor is a single movement, including a slow, 63 bars on an F# pedal point. The single movement from the E minor quartet was used five years later in his second string quintet Op. 77, as a second movement named "Intermezzo: Nocturne", making this initially a five-movement composition. He later withdrew the second movement and reworked it into the Nocturne for Strings in B major, Op. 40 (B. 47). These show a stronger sense of form and include three separate arrangements: for orchestra (B47), for violin and piano (B48A), and for piano four hands (B48B).


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: During his time in America in 1893, Dvořák composed two of his most popular quartets: the String Quartet No. 12 in F, Op. 96 ("The American") and the String Quintet in E-flat, Op. 97 (B180). Dvorak composed this work in three days after he and his family reunited in Spillville, Iowa. He drew inspiration from the freedom he felt in the country side of America. This piece is distinguishable from his other quartets due to the simplicity of it writing. Throughout the piece, Dvorak uses skipping rhythms, high register of the first violin, and unified key relationships among all movements except for Lento. There is less shaping in thematic material, heavy uses of repetition, and less attention was paid to the development. Shortly after the composition of Op. 96, Dvorak composed his E-flat Major String Quintet, Op. 97. This piece was distinguished from his prior chamber works due to the instrumentation of two viola parts. The influence that Native American folk music had on Dvorak's work was also apparent in Op. 97; there is a common drum rhythm in Native American music presented throughout all of the movements except the Larghetto.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: He also composed two piano quintets, both in A major, of which the second, Op. 81, is the better known. He left a Terzetto for two violins and viola (Op. 74); two piano quartets (Op. 23 and Op. 87), a string sextet, Op. 48; and four piano trios, including the Piano Trio No. 4 (subtitled "Dumky"), Op. 90. He also wrote a set of "Bagatelles", Op. 47, for the unusual combination of two violins, cello, and harmonium. The Bagatelles are cyclical and similar to a suite, echoing Czech bagpipe melodies. Dvořák wrote two waltzes for string quartet, and arranged set of 12 love songs for the string quartet entitled "Echo of Songs" (B152), taken from his set of 18 songs originally composed in 1865 entitled "Cypresses". His works for violin and piano include the "Romantic Pieces", the Violin Sonatina, and the Violin Sonata.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: In a 1904 interview, Dvořák claimed that opera was 'the most suitable form for the nation'. If this nationalist sentiment was at the heart of his opera compositions, he struggled to find a style straddling Czech traditional melody and the grand opera style of Giacomo Meyerbeer, which he experienced as lead viola player in the orchestra of Prague's Provisional Theatre between 1862 and 1871, and whose influence is evident in his works such as "Vanda" and "Dimitrij". His later interest in the music of Richard Wagner also influenced his operas, evident in his extensive rewrite of "Dmitrij" in 1894, following its failure at Vienna.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Of all his operas, only "Rusalka", Op. 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. This is attributable to their uneven invention and libretti, and perhaps also their staging requirements – "The Jacobin", "Armida", "Vanda" and "Dimitrij" need stages large enough to portray invading armies.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: There is speculation by Dvořák scholars such as Michael Beckerman that the second movement of his "Symphony No. 9 "From the New World"", was adapted from studies for a never-written opera about Hiawatha.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The song cycle of 10 "Biblical Songs", Op. 99, B. 185, was written in March 1894. Around that time Dvořák was informed of the death of the famous conductor, and his close personal friend, Hans von Bülow. A month earlier, he had been grieved to hear that his father was near death, far away in Bohemia. Dvořák consoled himself in the Psalms. The resulting work, considered the finest of his song cycles, is based on the text of the Czech Bible of Kralice. Dvořák's father died 28 March 1894, two days after the completion of the work.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Another well known cycle is the seven "Gypsy Songs" (Czech "Cikánské melodie") B. 104, Op. 55 which includes "Songs My Mother Taught Me" (the fourth of the set).


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák created many other songs inspired by Czech national traditional music, such as the "Love Songs", "Evening Songs", etc.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: From other works that show the influence of Czech folk rhythms and melodic shapes, perhaps the best known examples are the two sets of Slavonic Dances. The first book, Op. 46 (1878), is predominantly Czech in form. It was created for piano duet (one piano, four hands), but Dvořák then orchestrated the entire set, completing it the same year. The second book, Op. 72 (also composed originally for piano four hands), composed eight years later, includes forms native to other Slavic lands Serbia, Poland and Ukraine, although some "merge characteristics of more than one dance". Dvořák did not use actual folk tunes, but created his own themes in the style of traditional folk music, using the rhythms of original folk dances.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: A work that does not fit in the other categories is the "Symphonic Variations" of 1877. Orchestral variations on an original theme, composed as a freestanding work, were a rather unusual genre. Originally unsuccessful and revived only after ten years, it has since established itself in the repertoire.


title: Antonín Dvořák

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


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: The 1980 film "Concert at the End of Summer" is based on Dvořák's life. Dvořák was played by Josef Vinklář. The 2012 television film "The American Letters" focuses on Dvořák's love life. Dvořák is played by Hynek Čermák. Ian Krykorka has written a number of children's books based on some of Dvořák's operas. Josef Škvorecký wrote "Dvorak in Love" about his life in America as Director of the National Conservatory for Music.


title: Antonín Dvořák

text: Dvořák was also an avid train spotter, collecting the engine numbers of the express trains from Prague to Vienna and Dresden and also spent considerable time with closely watched trains in New York. He was said to find much inspiration from them in his compositions.


title: Frantz Fanon

text: Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and Marxism. As well as being an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist humanist concerned with the psychopathology of colonization and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization.