Page:Antonín Dvořák by J. E. Vojan (1941).pdf/15

 American music, and he was heartily received by the music circles of the metropolis. There were receptions and several concerts in New York and Boston. At the first of them, Carnegie Hall, October 21, 1892, Dvořák conducted his three overtures “In Nature”, “Carneval” and “Othello” and the cantata “Te Deum.” Thomas W. Higginson, founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, greeted Dvořák in a speech which valued the significance of Dvořák’s arrival to America.

Dvořák learned to love New York and was happy during his first year of residence there. His home at 327 West 17 Street, near the Conservatory, was very simple. Since he loved birds, Dvořák took a great deal of pleasure in visits to Central Park where he was mainly interested in a large cage filled with pigeons. Back in Bohemia railway locomotives had held a peculiar charm for him, while in New York he was no less enthusiastic about the great ocean liners docked at the piers. He knew the names of all of them and daily watched their arrivals and departures. One of his dear friends during the days of residence in America, was Joseph J. Kovařík, an American of Czech descent, from Spillville, Iowa, a graduate of Prague Conservatory of Music; he lived with the Dvořáks in New York City and was one of the teachers at the National Conservatory (later he was a member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for many years). It was due to Kovařík that Dvořák gave up the idea of spending his first summer vacation in Bohemia, and visited instead Spillville which was settled mainly by Czechoslovak families. He sent for his four children, and as soon as the family was reunited in New York, Dvořák left for Spillville where he spent four months, from June to September, 1893. But the following summer nobody could induce Dvořák to stay in America. He succumbed to homesickness for his native country and returned to Bohemia in the middle of May, 1894, in order to enjoy five delightful months in his summer home at Vysoká. The third year of his residence in New York, August 26, 1894-April 16, 1895, this time with his wife and one son, Dvořák spent in longing for Bohemia and for the members of his family from whom he was separated; evidences of this nostalgia are found in his let-