Dvořák’s Te Deum: A Festive Cantata for the New World
In the summer of 1892, three months before he was scheduled to depart his Czech homeland for America, Antonín Dvořák received a commission for a festive cantata. The request came from Mrs. Jeannette Thurber, the American philanthropist and arts patron who, in 1885 founded the National Conservatory of Music in New York. It was Thurber who recruited Dvořák to serve as the fledgling institution’s director. The cantata would allow the composer to introduce …