Music with Ease > Classical Music > Concert Guide: Nationalist Era > Overture, "Husitzka". Op. 67 - Dvorák

The "Husitzka" Overture was composed in 1883, the occasion of its composition being a commission to write a piece for the opening of the new Bohemian Theater in Prague, which replaced one destroyed by fire two years previously. As the theater was a national one, all classes of the Bohemian people contributed toward its erection, and Dvorák's overture added to the brilliancy of the dedicatory ceremonies. For the subject of his work the composer selected a stirring national event -- the struggle of the followers of Johann Huss, the religious martyr -- and for its main theme an impressive and defiant theme from one of the Hussite battle hymns. Around this theme in its varying forms and expression the overtures is built. It depicts the alternating hopes and fears of the Hussites, the fury of the strife, and at last, in a jubilant climax, the triumphant outcome.