composition had been completed before Dvořák moved to America and was commissioned by Jeanette Thurber in 1891, when the composer accepted a position as director of her school. Te Deum is more intimate than the Stabat Mater and Requiem. It was premiered at Dvořák's first concert in New York on 21 October 1892. The Mass in D major (first numbered Op. 76, then Op. 86) was originally intended for organ, solo voices and small choir. The work was finalized in 1892 when, in response to a request from the Novello publishers of London, Dvořák arranged his Mass for a symphony orchestra. The oratorio Saint Ludmila was a huge success in Bohemia and Moravia, sung at events in Dvořák's honor in 1901 and 1904. The piece had considerable success in England in October 1886, with an audience on the 15th "in raptures... the critics praised the music in the warmest terms", and on the 29th, there was a "large and equally enthusiastic audience, and once again the critics were full of praise", but the libretto's translation from Czech into English was "regarded on all sides as unsatisfactory". The cantata The Spectre's Bride, Op. 69, B. 135, performed in 1885 at the Birmingham, England, Musical Festival, was the greatest success to that point in Dvořák's career. Concerti The critic Harold C. Schonberg described "an attractive Piano Concerto in G minor with a rather ineffective piano part, a beautiful Violin Concerto in A minor, and a supreme Cello Concerto in B minor". All the concerti are in the classical three-movement form. The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G minor, Op. 33 was the first of three concerti (for solo instrument and orchestra) that Dvořák composed, but is perhaps the least known of the three. The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 53 was written in 1878 for the great Joseph Joachim, whom Dvořák had met and admired. It was finished in 1879, but Joachim was skeptical of the work. The concerto was premiered in 1883 in Prague by the violinist František Ondříček, who also gave its first performances in Vienna and London. The Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B minor, Op. 104 was the final concerto to be composed. He wrote it in 1894–1895 for his friend Hanuš Wihan. Wihan and others had asked for a cello concerto for some time, but Dvořák refused, stating that the cello