childhood

In music he far surpassed everyone else, so his father entrusted him to the care of Nelahozeves school teacher and musician Josef Spitz, in order that he develop his son’s skills further. Young Dvořák soon mastered the violin and entertained guests at village dances, and it wasn’t long before he gave his first solo appearance as a violinist in the local church serving the nearby village of Vepřek. Even so, during his childhood, Dvořák was still expected to help his father with the family business and prepare to take it over one day. His apprenticeship involved visits to local markets in the neighbourhood, where father and son would select livestock. He later described an incident from his young days where he led a head of wild cattle home from the village fair on a rope, whereupon the animal dragged him into a lake. At the time he is said to have vowed in a flood of tears that he was never going to be a butcher. It was also during this period that Dvořák first set eyes on the trains that would fascinate him his whole life. When he was nine years old he witnessed the construction of the railway which passed through Nelahozeves. The first steam train, a crowning achievement in technological progress at the time, passed through the village in the summer of 1851. It was probably these impressions from his childhood which ignited his future passion for everything associated with modern transport.