A Summer in Spillville in 1893

In her current novel Barbara Ortwein introduces us to
the composer Antonín Dvořák, already famous throughout
Europe, who in 1892 accepted a very well-paid
position at the National Conservatory of Music of
America in New York City and relocated with his family
from Prague to New York. In 1893, homesickness for his
Bohemian homeland led him and his family to set off on
an adventurous trip to the small town of Spillville in rural
Iowa for several months, in an area where many of his
countrymen had settled. The experiences of the composer
and his family in the former “Wild West” not only
allowed him to find a little Bohemia in America, but
also an America of diverse influences to which Bohemian
immigrants also had made their contributions. It is
hardly surprising that this journey echoes through
numerous musical works of the composer due to the
special inspiration that he found in Spillville and its
surroundings.
Barbara Ortwein’s novel was inspired by the author’s
personal experiences in Iowa, as well as in her new home
Prague.
With the composer Antonín Dvořák, she introduces an
artist who provided outstanding service to the intercultural
exchange between Europe and North America,
indeed contributing to a blending of European and
American elements in music. The small town of Spillville
in northeastern Iowa played a special role in assuring the
success of this fusion, as the author clarifies in a manner
both informative and entertaining with this novel.