The Wild Dove

The Wild Dove (also known as The Wood Dove; Czech: Holoubek), Op. 110, B. 198 (1896), is the fourth orchestral poem composed by the Czech composer, Antonín Dvořák. Composed in October and November 1896, with a revision in January 1897, the premiere was given on 20 March 1898[1] in Brno under the baton of Leoš Janáček.[2] The story is taken from the poem of the same name from Kytice, a collection of ballads by Karel Jaromír Erben. The four musical scenes describe the story of a woman who poisoned her husband and married another man shortly afterwards. A dove then sits on the grave of her dead husband and sings a sad song day after day. The wife feels guilty and commits suicide at the end by jumping and drowning in a river.[3]