Dvorák: The Wedding Shirt

I think that this work surpasses all my previous music, including my Stabat Mater, but I'd rather not tell anyone. That is what Antonín Dvo?ák wrote about his cantata The Bridal Shirt, which he composed for the Birmingham Music Festival in 1884. In this macabre Czech folk ballad by Karel Erben, a girl thinks of her lover who has gone abroad. If he did not return safely, she would rather die. Then a ghost invites her for a walk through the night landscape to his home: the cemetery. Just in time, she saves herself by praying and the first rays of sunlight announce the new day.