Sigma Alpha Iota

Summer 2020 12 P A N P I P E S A World of Music I came downstairs, stopping in an enclosed porch where I noticed a bowl full of unshelled walnuts harvested from the property, which Petr graciously shared with me. Aerward I strolled to the apple orchard to meet his older brother, Antonin IV, the third of the composer's great- grandsons I'd encountered that day. As I stood there with the brothers, Villa Rusalka seemed frozen in time. It was as if their great- grandfather was there with us too. Antonín Dvořák did not live at Villa Rusalka year round. Since area roads could be treacherous in the winter, he lived in Prague during the cold months. For two decades, he stayed in this beloved home from spring to autumn every year except 1893. He was living and working in New York then and, upon the recommendation of Josef Kovarik, his private secretary and copyist, Dvořák decided to try a Czech community in Spillville, Iowa. Hoping the Midwest landscape would compare to the Bohemian countryside he yearned for, Dvořák didn't return home that summer. Instead, on June 3, he and his family took a train from Manhattan to Iowa. e morning following his arrival in Spillville, he arose early to enjoy the rural scenery and listen to birds sing, including particularly the scarlet tanager. His daily 4 AM walks along the Turkey River continued throughout his stay. Aer breakfast and composing, he walked to St. Wenceslaus Church to play the organ for the 7 AM mass. His laundress later recalled it was challenging to get Dvořák's shirt cuffs clean because in his pastoral wanderings, he jotted down musical ideas on the starched cuffs. Perhaps one idea was the tanager's melody. e composer incorporated a variation of it in his "American" String Quartet in F major, op.96, one of two famous chamber works that summer. In the other, his String Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op.97, he used music he'd heard in a medicine show. Dvořák quickly acclimated to the Czech community — stopping to chat with the locals, competing in darda (a Bohemian card game) or having a drink at the local saloon, and even playing a reed organ (harmonium) for an invalid in her home. Apparently, Antonin was not the only one who treasured that summer retreat. In 1947, more than a half century later, Spillville's postmaster received a letter from Dvořák's son Otakar (1885-1961) who wanted to re-establish ties with members of the community and correspond with them, which he did until he died. During my recent visit to retrace Dvořák's haunts in Spillville, in Riverside Park by the At top, the Dvořák Memorial in Zlonice. Above, photos of Dvorak , Brahms, and Tchaikovsky at Villa Rusalka.

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