1. Was the "New World" Symphony actually composed in New York City or in Spillville, Iowa?

Answer:
As was his practice, Dvořák signed and dated the final page of the completed full score of the "New World" Symphony on May 24, 1893 at his home on East 17th Street in New York City; "Fine, Praised be to God!" He did take the completed manuscript with him when he left for Spillville a week later, ergo the confusion.


2. How did it come about that Harry T. Burleigh became a student at the New York Conservatory in 1890s? 

Answer:
Burleigh was singing at the occasional local concert and working as a stenographer for a piano manufacturer in Erie, Pennsylvania "giving him the opportunity to practice on their pianos," when he heard about scholarships being offered to talented persons by a music school in New York (the National Conservatory of Music in America). He had very little money but made the trip to New York to audition. The first audition was unsuccessful, but through the intervention of Mrs. Frances MacDowell, the mother of the composer Edward MacDowell who was the Conservatory's Secretary, he was offered a scholarship. The year was 1892, the same year that Dvořák arrived to become the Director of the Conservatory.


3. Was Dvořák in love with his sister-in-law Josefina Čermáková?

Answer:
Dvořák was said to have been infatuated with a woman who was to become his sister-in-law, a fate similar to Mozart's before him. Whether Dvořák completely got over it after his marriage is debated by scholars to this day.


4. Where is the original score of the "New World" Symphony located? Is it ever exhibited?

Answer:
According to Marketa Hallova, a leading expert on Dvořák, the original score of the "New World" Symphony, autographed by Dvořák, is located in the Antonín Dvořák Museum in Prague. The first copy of the score, probably copied by Dvořák's assistant Josef Kovařík, is in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra archives, and it was that copy from which the Symphony was played for the first time on December 16, 1893 at Carnegie Hall.

5. What was built on the site of the house in which Dvořák lived during his stay in New York in  the 1890s?

Answer:
With an initial grant from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Beth Israel Hospital erected an AIDS out-patient-clinic to replace the demolished Dvořák House.