Dvořák for kids: his life, his music, and what to play first

Antonín Dvořák was a Czech composer who lived from 1841 to 1904. He filled his music with the rhythms of Czech folk dances, and he spent three years in the United States leading a music school in New York. He also loved trains. The best first piece for a child is the Humoresque No. 7, a skipping tune that lasts about three minutes.

His name is said “DVOR-zhahk.”

Quick facts

• Born: 1841, in Nelahozeves, a village near Prague
• Died: 1904, in Prague
• Era: Romantic
• Played: viola and organ
• Known for: the Symphony “From the New World,” the Slavonic Dances, and the Cello Concerto

The life in short

Dvořák’s father kept the village inn and worked as a butcher. The boy learned the violin from the village schoolmaster and played at dances and in church.

At 16, he went to Prague to study the organ. Then he earned a living for years as a viola player in a theater orchestra, writing music in his spare hours.

His break came in his thirties. He entered his music for a state prize, and one of the judges was Johannes Brahms. Brahms was impressed and wrote to his own publisher. The publisher asked Dvořák for a set of dances in the Czech style. The Slavonic Dances came out in 1878 and sold fast across Europe.

In 1892, Dvořák sailed to New York to direct a music school. He told American composers to listen to the music of their own country, and he named the songs of Black Americans as its richest source. He spent one summer in a small Czech farming town in Iowa. While in America, he wrote his Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.”

He missed home and went back to Prague in 1895. He taught, composed, and raised pigeons at his country house.

Dvořák and trains

A railway line ran past his childhood village, and Dvořák was hooked for life. In Prague, he walked to the station most days to watch the engines. He knew the timetables and wrote down engine numbers.

What the music sounds like

Dvořák’s music is full of tunes, one after another. Many of them sound like folk songs, though he made them up himself.

His dances are hard to sit still to. The beat jumps between twos and threes, the way it does in the dances he grew up with.

Four pieces to play first

Humoresque No. 7. A skipping, dotted tune comes first. A smooth, sweeter tune follows. Then the skip returns. Ask your child to skip for the first part and glide for the second.

Slavonic Dance, Op. 46, No. 8. A fast, stomping dance for full orchestra. The beat lurches on purpose. It lasts about four minutes.

Largo, from Symphony No. 9. An English horn plays a slow, homesick tune over soft strings. One of Dvořák’s students later put words to it, and many people know it as a song.

Symphony No. 9, last movement. The strings build up speed, and then the horns and trumpets blast out a bold march tune.

Things to do together

Skip and glide. Play the Humoresque. Change the way you move each time the tune changes.

Train ride. Line up chairs as a train. Play the Slavonic Dance and chug along. Ask your child where the train speeds up.

Far from home. Play the Largo. Ask your child how the music feels, and what they would miss if they lived far away for three years.

Find the horn. The English horn belongs to the oboe family. Read about it in woodwind instruments for kids.

Print and play

Print the Dvořák fact sheet. It has the story, three pieces, and room to write and draw. Find him on the composer timeline.

Next, read Brahms for kids to meet the composer who gave him his start. For all 24 composers by era, see classical composers for kids.