Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904) composed the Cello Concerto in his East 17th Street apartment in New York from November 1894 to February 1895, near the end of his American residency of 1892 to 1895.
His psychological framework at the time was likely influenced by the news that his first love, Josefina Čermáková (later his sister-in-law) was gravely ill, and a fragment of her favorite of Dvořák’s songs, “Leave Me Alone” from Op. 82 of 1887-88, appears in the second movement. Later that year, after his return to Bohemia and her death, he changed the ending of the concerto to incorporate another passage.
The recently discovered manuscript, which has blank sections, may have been part of an early consultation that Dvořák had with his German-American colleague, cellist Alwin Schroeder, in New York.
Listen now to the great cellist, Yo Yo Ma, as he performs this work:
