DVORÁK, Antonín (1841-1904)

DVORÁK, Antonín (1841-1904)
Autograph letter signed ('Anton Dvorák') to an unidentified nobleman ('Hochgeborener Herr'), n.p., n.d. [dated 5 June 1884 by the recipient].
In German, two pages, 281 x 222mm, annotation in Czech, perhaps by the recipient, at foot of p.2. Provenance: Sotheby's, 1 December 1993, lot 376.

On the dedication of the piano duets From the Bohemian Forest, op. 68. In highly formal German (and signed unusually with the German form of his first name, Anton), Dvorák asks the recipient to present to the Crown Princess of Austria, Stephanie of Belgium, a copy of From the Bohemian Forest, the dedication of which she has been pleased to accept.

From the Bohemian Forest, written at the turn of the year at the suggestion of Dvorák's publisher, Fritz Simrock, was his third series of piano duets inspired by the Czech countryside. The 1880s were to see Dvorák at the height of his international reputation, even if his success in Vienna was hampered by anti-Czech feeling. Princess Stephanie of Belgium (1864-1945) was the young wife of Prince Rudolph of Habsburg, the heir-apparent to the Austrian empire: she was widowed in sensational circumstances in 1889 when Rudolph and his mistress were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide pact.