Linking the cello concertos of Antonin Dvorak (top) and Victor Herbert In 1894, Antonin Dvorak was teaching and conducting in New York, where he heard a concerto for cello and orchestra by one of his colleagues. He was so impressed that he rushed backstage and told his friend, “Splendid, absolutely splendid!” He might well have added what Brahms would say after hearing Dvorak’s own cello concerto a year later: “Had I known that such a concerto could be written, I would have tried to compose one myself.” And who wrote the piece that inspired Dvorak? Victor Herbert, remembered now almost entirely for his operettas