Dvořák's birthplace, at number 12, is exactly opposite the now decrepit station; an underpass to cross the line, then a road, and the house is on the other side of the road. The house was built originally in the 17th century as a pub, but was rebuilt after a serious fire which occurred when Dvořák was about a year old, so most of it is not original. The museum consists mainly of the usual collection of documents and photos, but is very interesting and well laid out nevertheless. A big 'dance room' with a pillar in the middle, is preserved from the earlier pub. It's quite a large building, and the Dvořák family lived in part of the pub on the ground floor while other families lived upstairs.
Dvořák's grandfather Jan was a butcher's journeyman. He moved to Nelahozeves in 1818 and rented a meat shop along the road at number 24. Dvořák's father František had been born in 1814, and at the age of 26 he returned to Nelahozeves, where he married Anna Zdeňková and rented the pub at number 12. Antonin was born the following year.
Living not far from Cambridge, England, I was interested to find among the photos on display a picture of Dvořák in his robes after receiving his honorary degree from Cambridge University in 1891, together with a photo of the unmistakable front view of the Cambridge Senate House. I found the robes themselves on display in the Dvořák Museum in Prague.
The Czech musicologist and Dvořák expert Dr Jarmil Burghauser worked out that František Dvořák was actually not a very good innkeeper (and the butcher's business didn't work well either because people in the village were too poor), so in later life he became a professional musician himself – a zither player. [It was Burghauser who gave his name to the 'B' numbering system for Dvořák's works, placing them in chronological order instead of the publication order of the opus numbers.] |
