A “Scrim of Romantic Nationalism”: Audience Perceptions of Dvořák in Late Nineteenth-Century Prague

Abstract

With discernible scorn, one Czech critic declared in 1885 that “the Viennese audience . . . swears by the newspapers.” Indeed, music critics in fin-de-siècle Vienna tended to exert an uncommonly high degree of sway over popular opinion, as noted by David Brodbeck. Drawing upon the example of Antonín Dvořák, the present article investigates the relationships between audiences and critics in Prague during the 1870s and 1880s. To a certain extent, critics in Prague—like their Viennese counterparts—undoubtedly molded public views of Dvořák. In an environment where literacy rates were high and print culture was becoming a force to be reckoned with, Czech critics were positioned to extend their reach widely. However, rather than acting merely as passive recipients, audiences in Prague assumed much of the shaping and manipulating of opinion themselves. Their response were crucial in determining whether a performance could be characterized as a triumph by the press; accessibility to the public was considered by critics to represent an important consideration in assessments of Dvořák’s works; and the prevalent patriotic aspect of the institutions in Prague at which Dvořák’s compositions were performed motivated audiences to view everything through a “scrim of romantic nationalism,” as Michael Beckerman has expressed it, leading critics to devote inordinate attention to the “Czechness” of Dvořák’s music.