アントニン・ドヴォルザーク

ドヴォルザークは1841年、プラハの北にある村ネラホゼヴェスで、9人きょうだいの長男として生まれました。父は宿屋と肉屋を営み、ツィター（弦をはじく民族楽器）なども弾く音楽好きでした。村の先生にバイオリンを習い、12歳ごろからは別の町でドイツ語やオルガン、音楽の理論を学びます。子どものころ村に鉄道の駅ができたことが、一生続く鉄道好きのきっかけになったと言われています。Dvořák was born in 1841 in Nelahozeves, a village north of Prague, the eldest of nine children. His father ran an inn and a butcher's shop and was also a keen amateur musician who played the zither, a plucked folk instrument. Antonín learned the violin from the village teacher, and from about the age of twelve he studied German, organ and music theory in another town. A railway station was built in his village when he was a boy, and this is said to have sparked his lifelong love of trains.

プラハのオルガン学校を出たあと、1862年から仮劇場のオーケストラでヴィオラを弾き、スメタナの指揮でも演奏しました。暮らしは苦しかったものの、作曲で国の奨学金を何度も受け、審査員だったブラームスに認められます。ブラームスの紹介でドイツの出版社ジムロックから出した『スラヴ舞曲集』（1878）が大当たりし、一気にヨーロッパ中で有名になりました。After finishing organ school in Prague, he played viola from 1862 in the orchestra of the Provisional Theatre, sometimes under Smetana's baton. Money was tight, but he won an Austrian state grant for composers several times, and Brahms, who sat on the jury, noticed his talent. Brahms recommended him to the German publisher Simrock, and the Slavonic Dances (1878) became a huge hit that made him famous all over Europe.

1873年にアンナと結婚しましたが、じつははじめ姉のヨゼフィーナに恋をしていました。その後、幼い子どもたちを相次いで亡くす悲しみを経験し、その思いは宗教曲『スターバト・マーテル』に込められたと言われます。1892年にはアメリカに招かれ、ニューヨークのナショナル音楽院の院長に。そこで交響曲第9番『新世界より』や弦楽四重奏曲『アメリカ』を書きました。In 1873 he married Anna Čermáková, although at first he had been in love with her older sister, Josefína. Later the couple lost three young children within a short time, and his grief is said to have gone into his sacred work Stabat Mater. In 1892 he was invited to America to direct the National Conservatory of Music in New York. There he wrote his Ninth Symphony, From the New World, and the American String Quartet.

1895年に故郷へ戻り、チェロ協奏曲を仕上げ、オペラ『ルサルカ』（1901）を発表しました。プラハ音楽院の院長も務めています。1904年5月1日、病気のため62歳でプラハで亡くなり、ヴィシェフラド墓地に眠っています。『新世界より』第2楽章のメロディーは、日本では『家路』『遠き山に日は落ちて』として歌われ、夕方や下校の音楽としておなじみです。He returned home in 1895 and completed his Cello Concerto, and his opera Rusalka was first performed in 1901. He also served as director of the Prague Conservatory. He died of illness in Prague on 1 May 1904, aged 62, and is buried in Vyšehrad Cemetery. In Japan, the slow melody from the second movement of the New World Symphony is sung as Ieji (Going Home) and is a familiar sound in the evening and at the end of the school day.