On 31 March 1941, Bohuslav Martinů arrived in New York City following a dramatic nine-month journey from occupied France. Once in the United States, he was only one of many fine composers in exile who hoped to continue his work while Europe was at war. And like most of his colleagues from the old world, he was unsure about how he would be received.

Martinů's situation might have seemed exceptionally bleak. He was extremely withdrawn and could barely speak English, making him reliant on others for some of the most ordinary personal and professional tasks. What is more, the chaos of his flight from France left him in possession of only four of his scores.

Considering Martinů's uniquely difficult circumstances, which I will discuss in this book, we might think that he would have been unable to succeed. But instead, he managed to establish himself quite well in the United States, and he gradually rose to a level of fame that is seldom recognized in the historical literature. Pivotal in launching Martinů's American career was the Boston Symphony's Serge Koussevitzky, who not only premiered Martinů's Concerto Grosso (November 1941) and brought him to Tanglewood as a professor (summer 1942), but also commissioned and performed Martinů's First Symphony (November 1942), the first of five works in the genre that the composer completed in consecutive years. Apart from Koussevitzky, the list of high-profile musicians performing Martinů's works at this time reads like an encyclopedia of 1940s American musical life. Also conducting his works with the major East Coast and Midwestern orchestras were Erich Leinsdorf, Charles Munch, Eugene Ormandy, Artur Rodzinski, and George Szell. And among the soloists premiering his concertos and chamber works were Mischa Elman, Rudolf Firkušny, and Gregor Piatigorsky. Based on the number of first-rate performances he received of fresh, new works, it is hardly an exaggeration that, by the end of World War II, Martinů was among the preeminent composers in the United States, and on the East Coast alone, he clearly ranked at the top of his profession.