Antonin Dvorak

Dvorak writes Classical forms with folk-derived material. His themes are usually short, square and singable, built on scales that avoid the leading note or that flatten the seventh, which gives them a modal colour without quoting any actual folk tune. Brahms recommended him to a publisher and the two sound alike in their craft, but Dvorak's surface is brighter and his melodies simpler.

The Ninth Symphony was written in New York in 1893, during his time as director of the National Conservatory. He said that he had studied the melodies of African American spirituals and of Native American music and had written themes in their spirit rather than borrowing them. The cor anglais tune in the slow movement is his own, though it later had words fitted to it and became known as a spiritual.

One structural habit to notice: he brings themes back across movements. The first movement's main theme reappears in the second, third and fourth movements of the Ninth, and the finale stacks several earlier themes together before the end.