Out in the open: Dvořák’s Fifth Symphony displays ‘the strong breath of nature rejoicing and the sense of mortal wellbeing’, wrote his biographer
The work
It never hurts to have friends in high places, and in the case of Antonín Dvořák that friend was Johannes Brahms. It was on the older German composer’s advice that, in early 1878, Dvořák sent his for soprano and piano to Brahms’s influential, and financially canny, Berlin publisher Fritz Simrock. Knowing a good thing when he saw it, Simrock promptly asked Dvořák to write two books of dances for piano duet in the style of. Within two months, eight pieces for four hands were on the publisher’s desk, followed soon after by orchestrated versions of both. In this latter form, the would become a staple diet of orchestras all over the world while – latching onto the boom in popularity of upright pianos in people’s homes – sales of the sheet music for the piano original filled Simrock’s coffers nicely and made Dvořák a household name.
