The narrator of Flights would certainly not consider Antonín Dvořák a “true traveller”. The composer’s stay in America was reminiscent of the holiday trips of Olga Tokarczuk’s parents described in one of the autobiographical threads of the novel. Although Dvořák, when deciding to travel overseas, was probably thinking primarily about the salary of the director of the New York Conservatory, which was to be twenty-five times higher than the amount paid to him in Prague, in fact, like Tokarczuk’s parents, “he left to come back”.

In love with his native Czechia, Dvořák chose Spillville, located in the wilderness of Iowa, for his first American vacation – in the summer of 1893 – out of all the richness of America. The provincial town, two thousand kilometers away from New York, was inhabited by a large number of descendants of Czech immigrants. The composer found himself among his own people again and returned to many of the habits he had cultivated at his summer estate in Czechia (for example, he played the organ during morning masses in the local church). The following year, the artist decided to go to the Czechia for vacation, and in the spring of 1895 he returned to his native country for good. In this substitute for home, which was Spillville, Dvořák did not forget about the mission for which he was brought to the United States – to create a national American music. There he wrote the String Quartet in F major, into which, just as into the Symphony From the New World, he incorporated elements of the musical cultures of America, and even a birdsong that he heard on the Turkey River – one of the tributaries of the Mississippi.

Italy’s Luigi Boccherini, who was active a hundred years before him, felt much better abroad than Dvořák. Already at the age of fourteen he left for Vienna. In 1768 he went to Madrid, where he remained for the rest of his life. The nine guitar quintets he wrote were, in fact, original transcriptions of his earlier works. The composer combines the classical style with Spanish stylisations, and the fandango closing the Quintet in D major, which will be heard during the concert, is the most thrilling example of such a synthesis.

Forty years after the Dvořák, Erich Korngold followed in his footsteps as a European in America. He was invited to the United States in 1934. He was thirty-seven then. His musical career had been developing brilliantly, and his enormous talent had been evident from his youth. Korngold began working on the surprisingly mature String Sextet at the age of seventeen. The Austrian found employment overseas in Hollywood, and his style later became a point of reference for generations of composers of film music.