The composer and conductor Karel Bendl (1838-1897) was a prominent figure in Czech musical life and a close friend of Antonín Dvořák, helping him greatly in his early days of struggle. Today Bendl is largely forgotten, and he has never been the topic of any substantial study. The impetus for the present article is discovery of a letter Dvořák wrote to Bendl which is here published complete for the first time within a survey of Bendl’s life and work, including much information that is not widely known and in several cases (not only the mentioned letter) has never been published.