Dvorak New World Symphony Review New York Herald 1983
Antonín Dvořák enjoyed near universal popularity in the United States by the time he arrived in New York in September 1892 to atomic number 82 the National Conservatory of Music. The conservatory's founder had great hopes his stewardship would drag the establishment to rival those of Europe, while others believed he could help the state's classical music civilization develop its own phonation. Dvořák came to believe that "Negro melodies" should form the basis for a distinctly American classical style. He was not the start to say and so. But the Czech composer's outsized stature and outsider status reignited widespread debate about the nature and future of American composition – and exposed racism within the classical music world. Then says musicologist Douglas Due west Shadle, whose latest volume traces the 1893 premiere of Dvořák's most famous piece from his American sojourn.
Dvořák's Symphony No. ix, in E pocket-sized, "From the New Earth" is among the universally most honey and widely performed pieces of classical music today. It also is – but every bit it was in the 19th century – his most controversial work, and still somewhat shrouded in historical myth. Dvořák's assertion in a May 1893 interview for the New York Herald Tribune about the potential role of Black colloquial music "launched a months-long contend riddled with racist invective that put the white racial foundation of American classical music on full brandish", Prof. Shadle writes in his new book, "Antonín Dvořák'southward New World Symphony".
"To make a long story short, there was a very ambitious philanthropist named Jeanette Thurber who was very invested in developing an American operatic tradition in the 1880s… And the conservatory had some ups and downs over its first few years, with directors coming and going, she soon realized that possibly having an executive director not so invested in opera was a practiced thought.
"Her kinesthesia eventually advised her to pocketbook Antonín Dvořák, who at the time was one of the nearly famous composers in Central Europe and the Great britain, with a very strong post-obit amongst Czech and German, as well every bit English-speaking musicians. As I outline in the book, his music was very popular in the United States throughout the 1880s.
"So, there was a lot of incentive to bring in someone with this level of authorisation in the musical world to New York Urban center. She wanted her solarium to rival those of Europe, and and so offered him an exorbitant amount of money to come – about xv,000 dollars, in the 1890s. She likewise offered him things like fourth dimension off in the summer to etch and promised he would be teaching the all-time composition students. And so, he was very attracted to this position."
The famous Czech composer was invited to pb the National Conservatory of Music by Thurber, a philanthropist of socially progressive causes with whom he would come up to advocate providing free education there for exceptional Blackness musicians. Dvořák could non take imagined that his tenure every bit conservatory manager between 1892 and 1895 would then reflect America's broader racial divides at the dawn of the Jim Crow era – a period marked past lynching, disenfranchisement, segregation, and the conquest of Native American lands, Prof. Shadle says.
"Office of the story that I think is somewhat misunderstood is that, early, Dvořák was not enticed by the prospect of developing a specifically American musical style – it was merely to run this conservatory. But that idea of developing ane was amongst the most significant topics inside the musical printing in the United States, and amidst musicians.
"As he was planning his trip, and certainly after his arrival, he quickly understood that he would be asked to counterbalance in on these issues, given that information technology had been a hot push button topic for several years, if not a decade or more. Then, Dvořák learned that the stakes of his directorship of the conservatory where quite a bit higher, that he might have an bear upon on American musical life more broadly through compositional channels.
"And so in May 1893, but about eight months after he arrived, Dvořák famously stated that he thought that music by African-American musicians, this kind of folk music or vernacular music, should become the basis of a classical style. He was not the first person to say this, by any stretch of the imagination. In my book, I go into a long discussion of composers who had thought about it, tried it, and explained why information technology was skillful – again, for about 10 or 15 years prior to Dvořák's arrival.
"But I also bear witness that this view was a minority position at the time; information technology was non widely accepted. So, for Dvořák to give this kind of international, authoritative imprimatur to the idea actually changed the nature of that soapbox. Suddenly, information technology had a type of cachet it had not had previously. And it so inflamed a lot of by and large negative reactions from American composers. Simply there was a small contingent of musicians – and most importantly African American musicians –who welcomed and embraced this annunciation from Dvořák.
"And so, on the one paw, he influenced American composers, but I'd say when it comes to African-American composers and musicians, it was more than that he inspired them to continue downward a path that they had already wanted to pursue. So, it'south kind of a common influence and inspiration."
The "Dvořák Statement" of May 1893
In May 1893, merely before he planned to leave the city with his family unit for the summertime, the New York Herald Tribune published the explosive interview with what became known as the Dvořák Argument: "I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called Negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of whatever serious and original school of limerick to be developed in the U.s.." Dvořák's New World Symphony, which the New York Combo agreed to premiere in December 1893, was supposed to prove his hypothesis, says Prof. Shadle.
"Then, how did he reach this decision? In the book, I follow about viii different channels of influence on Dvořák… In that location were several individuals from different strands of his experience in New York City that brought him to this conclusion, the most important of which was a Black student at the conservatory named Harry T. Burleigh, who was a baritone vocalist and is probably the almost well-known companion of Dvořák as far as this side of his residency goes. Burleigh sang spirituals and other vernacular music for Dvořák in his ain home, with his children there, and they developed a very proficient relationship.
"Michael Beckerman, a scholar at New York Academy, has shown that the music critic James Huneker had a profound influence on Dvořák also. He showed him a music magazine article from 1892 written by a schoolteacher from Louisville, Kentucky, who had compiled street cries streets of African American residents and published them along with an analysis of the musical characteristics. And in that commodity, she mentions that peradventure some 'musical messiah' would appear who'd use information technology equally the basis of a classical style. And then, I think Dvořák started to get all these ideas.
"There were a few other individuals – such as an older gentleman named Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Civil War veteran who during the disharmonize and before long thereafter nerveless African-American folk music in the South and had shared it in a widely shared essay in 1867. And Higginson incidentally gave the keynote voice communication after Dvořák'due south big arrival concert in Oct 1982.
"There'southward a very famous music critic, Henry Krehbiel who wrote for the New York Herald Tribune, who was another complier of African American folk melodies and became Dvořák'due south leading advocate during this period. And I think it'south highly probable they had a lot of conversations on this topic also. And so, Dvořák was getting input from a lot of people in the U.s. who were invested in the preservation of African American folk music and signaling its importance for American music, culture and history in general.
"So, that Dvořák reached the conclusion he did [about African American music being the basis of a national classical style] I think makes sense, also given his proclivities for using Maverick folk dance and tune in his earlier pieces, including symphonic pieces. I recollect ane of the more fun aspects of the story is the kaleidoscope of personalities beyond Dvořák who played a role in the story, both feeding in to Dvořák and fanning out from his famous statements in May 1893."
'Dvořák! Dvořák!' - the musical event of the twelvemonth
A New York Herald Tribune commodity published on December 17, 1893 wrote about the premiere of Dvořák's New World Symphony as being the musical outcome of the year. It described a night at Carnegie Hall that ended in a thunderous tempest of adulation and cries of "Dvořák! Dvořák!" as New York hailed the composer. Setting bated historical questions for a moment, I asked the musicologist Prof. Shadle, an expert on 19th century American classical music, what in his view makes the composition so special, so universally beloved today.
"In the introduction to the book, I talk about my ain starting time run across with the New World Symphony, when I was nigh 14 – and of course I had no thought nigh these backstories. I heard it just as a piece of music, if you will. I remember there are many musical aspects that are a part of this story only don't necessarily require cognition of it. One is the rhythmic vitality and the energy, particularly in the three faster movements.
"Just beyond that, this music is dramatic. I think that's the best way to describe it. But each movement is its own micro drama that creates its ain story arc from first to cease. And it's non the story arc from say of a Beethoven's fifth symphony, which is from struggle to triumph; it's non a story arc with leitmotifs like a Richard Wagner opera; it's a story arc that invokes a wide spectrum of emotions in a way they few other symphonies actually do.
"I mean, symphonies are all rather circuitous and large and that's what makes them symphonies – they're multimovement, that sort of thing. Only Dvořák's New World symphony has a depth and a latitude of emotional expression, dramatic expression, that really makes it stand up out. And when you lot add together in all these cultural signifiers, like its engagement with African American music and potentially Native American music and the other non-musical things, like the story of Hiawatha, that Dvořák was thinking about… I remember it'southward 1 of the most densely thought-out symphonies in the literature.
"I'm the final person to say that a piece is neat for all fourth dimension, only I would argue that this is the reason and then many people accept plant it so compelling. People tend to desire something with human being interest and drama in it. And even though it's instrumental, I remember Dvořák has establish a way to reach outside purely musical expression to bring people into it. In that location's just so much in information technology to bask. The melodies are catchy, the rhythms – information technology'south truly a wonderful piece."
In the 2nd part of our discussion with musicologist Douglas W Shadle, writer of the volume "Antonín Dvořák'south New World Symphony" (Oxford University Press), we learn more than nigh the specifics of the famous limerick; what American influences can be plant in the Czech composer's work; and trace Dvořák'southward influence on some of the Black musicians and intellectuals who brought most the Harlem Renaissance, who considered his advocacy of African American spirituals a significant milestone.
Source: https://english.radio.cz/antonin-dvoraks-new-world-symphony-american-anthem-delighted-divided-a-nation-8709481
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