family tragedy

After this joyful period in Dvořák’s career which saw him extremely focused on his composition work, however, he suffered an unexpected blow. After the death of his daughter Josefa, who died two days after birth, his one-year-old daughter Růžena died under tragic circumstances (phosphorus poisoning) in August 1877; and, one month later, his son Otakar, then three-and-a-half years old, succumbed to smallpox. Within a short period Dvořák had lost all three of his children. After the death of the first child he wrote the piano version of what would become one of his most celebrated works: Stabat Mater. With the loss of another two children Dvořák returned once more to the text of the mediaeval Latin sequence describing the Virgin Mary’s suffering as she witnesses the Crucifixion of her Son; this was now the definitive orchestral version. The cantata Stabat Mater contributed significantly to the composer’s international celebrity in years to come.