International reputation[edit]

Dvok entered the Austrian Prize competition again in 1877, submitting his Moravian Duets and
other music, possibly his Piano Concerto.
[43]
He did not learn the outcome until December. Then,
he received a personal letter from the music critic Eduard Hanslick, who had also been on the
juries awarding the prizes. The letter not only notified Dvok that he had again won the prize, but
made known to him for the first time that Brahms and Hanslick had been on the jury. The letter
conveyed an offer of friendly assistance of the two in making Dvok's music known outside his
Czech motherland.
[43]
Within the month December 1877, Dvok wrote his String Quartet no. 9 in
D minor and dedicated it to Brahms.
[44]
Both Brahms and Hanslick had been much impressed by
the Moravian Duets, and Brahms recommended them to his publisher,Simrock, who published
them with success. Having in mind Brahms's well-received Hungarian Dances, Simrock
commissioned Dvok to write something of the same nature. Dvok submitted his Slavonic
Dances, Op. 46 in 1878, first for two pianos, but when requested by Simrock, also in an
orchestral version. These were an immediate and great success. On December 15, 1878, the
leading music critic Louis Ehlert in the Berlin "Nationalzeitung" published a review of the Moravian
Duets and Slavonic Dances, saying that the "Dances" would make their way "round the world"
and "a heavenly naturalness flows through this music."
[45]
"There was a run on the German music
shops for the dances and duets of this hitherto ... unknown composer." The dances were played
in 1879 in concerts in France, England, and the United States.
In 1879 Dvok wrote his String Sextet. Simrock showed the score to the leading violinist Joseph
Joachim, who with others premiered it in November of that year. Joachim became a "chief
champion" of Dvok's chamber music.
[46]
Also in 1879, Dvok had written his Violin Concerto. In
December he dedicated the piece to Joachim and sent him the score.
[47]
The next spring the two
discussed the score and Dvok revised it extensively, but Joachim was still not comfortable with
it and apparently never was. The concerto was premiered in Prague in October 1883 by the
violinist Frantiek Ondraek, who also played it in Vienna with conductor Hans Richter in
December of that year.
[47]
Twice later, Joachim was scheduled to play the concerto, but both
times the arrangements fell through
[48]
and he never did play it.
The conductor Hans Richter asked Dvok to compose his Symphony No. 6 for the Vienna
Philharmonic, intending to premiere it in December 1880. However, Dvok later discovered that,
despite this intention, members of the orchestra objected to performing works by the composer in
two consecutive seasons, due to "anti-Czech feeling."
[49]
Adolf ech therefore conducted the
premiere of the symphony at a concert of thePhilharmonia society (in Czech: spolek
Filharmonie,
[50]
predecessor of the Czech Philharmonic) on March 25, 1881, in Prague.
[51]
Richter
did eventually conduct the piece in London in 1882 and still retained an interest in Dvoks
compositions.
[52]

Dvok's Stabat Mater (1880) was performed and very well received at the Royal Albert Hall in
London on March 10, 1883, conducted by Joseph Barnby.
[53]
The success "sparked off a whole
series of performances in England and the United States", a year ahead of appreciation in
Germany and Austria.
[53]
Dvok was invited to visit England where he appeared to great acclaim
in 1884. The Royal Philharmonic Society of London commissioned Dvok to conduct concerts in
London, and his performances were well received there.
[54]
In response to the commission,
Dvok wrote his Symphony No. 7 and conducted the premiere of the symphony at St. James's
Hall on April 22, 1885.
[55]
On a visit later in 1885, Dvok presented his cantata The Spectre's
Bride, in a concert August 27. He had arrived a week early to conduct rehearsals of the chorus of
500 voices and orchestra of 150. The performance was "a greater triumph than any" Dvok "had
had in his life up to that time...following this phenomenal success, choral societies in the English-
speaking countries hastened to prepare and present the new work."
[56]
Dvok visited England
nine times in total,
[57]
often conducting his own works there. In 1887, Richter conducted
the Symphonic Variations in London and Vienna to great acclaim (they had been written ten
years earlier and Dvok had allowed them to languish after initial lack of interest from his
publishers). Richter wrote to Dvok of the London performance, "at the hundreds of concerts I
have conducted during my life, no new work has been as successful as yours."
[58]
But a
performance of Stabat Mater in Vienna, in February 1888, fell victim to more anti-Czech feeling
and what Dvok called "destructive criticism." He heartily thanked Richter for his "courage and
devoted sympathy."
[59]

In 1890, influenced by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Dvok also visited Russia, and conducted the
orchestras in Moscow and in St. Petersburg.
[57]
In 1891, Dvok received an honorary degree
from the University of Cambridge, and was offered a position at the Prague Conservatory as
professor of composition and instrumentation. At first he refused the offer, but then later
accepted; this change of mind was seemingly a result of a quarrel with his publisher, Simrock,
over payment for his Eighth Symphony. His Requiem premiered later that year in Birmingham at
the Triennial Music Festival.