Cello and orchestra together for the first time

If Dvořák's objections to the cello were largely based on timbral considerations, as his pupils' testimony suggests, his experience on tour with Wihan would have done much to allay his fears. During his stay in America, and even before he considered beginning work on a concerto, his mind was turning once again towards the cello as a solo instrument, though doubts as to the viability of the cello when pitted against an orchestra seem to have remained. These surfaced while orchestrating the Rondo and Silent Woods in New York in October 1893. Along with revisions to his Ninth Symphony (‘From the New World’, op. 95, B 178), these two orchestrations comprised Dvořák's first creative work on his return to New York after an extended summer holiday in the Czech community of Spillville in Iowa. Exactly why he made the arrangements is not known, but they may have been prompted by his German publisher Simrock, with whom he was re-establishing good relations. (The two men had fallen out badly over Simrock's unwillingness to publish Dvořák's Eighth Symphony in 1890 and professional relations were effectively suspended until the summer of 1893.) Dvořák wrote to Simrock early in July offering, in a package that included the Ninth Symphony and the ‘American’ Quartet, the Rondo for cello at the relatively modest price of 500 marks. Simrock at this point might well have suggested orchestral versions, since he published them along with the piano originals the following year. For his part, Dvořák saw it as an opportunity to claim an extra 1,000 mark fee for the two arrangements and the piano duet version of the ‘Dumky’ Trio.