From time immemorial, the Czechs, or the Bohemians as they used to be called, have been famous as musicians as far as European music was made. In dusty chronicles from the Middle Ages, we find that their names inscribed as pipers and fiddlers to the great dukes and kings of France and Germany. In the eighteenth century, Bohemian composers settled in France; Italy, Australia and Germany, contributing richly to the new symphonic style, many years before Haydn was given his misleading title of “father of the symphony.” Thus Dvorak was following a tradition more ancient than he perhaps knew when he accepted an important musical position in a far-off land and came to teach at the National Conservatory of Music in New York. His New World Symphony became a hymn to the folk spirit of two countries: the united States and Czechoslovakia.
When Anton Seidl conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of Dvorak’s Symphony (on December 16, 1893, in Carnegie Hall), there were hopes that this might prove the starting point of a style of nation American composition. Before the premiere Dvorak had made clear just what he felt the basis of an American school should be.
As a good Romantic, he was convinced that great art-music must grow, plant-like, from the healthy soil of native folk music. This he had no difficulty in identifying for us as the Negro spiritual and the songs and dances of American Indians. Furthermore, having heard Henry T. Burleigh sing spirituals and having studied “a certain number of Indian melodies, which a friend gave me.” Dvorak concluded, rather hastily perhaps, that the music of the Negroes and the music of the Indians were “practically identical.”
Dvorak’s belief in the near-identity of Negro and American Indian music is reflected in the famous English horn melody of the second movement of the New World Symphony, which to most Americans seems steeped in the character of Negro spirituals, whereas Dvorak actually had been inspired, according to his own declaration, by the scene of the forest funeral of Minnehaha in Long fellow’s epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha. The Scherzo, he explained, “was suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians dance, and is also an easy I made in the direction of imparting the local color of Indian character to music.”
The Indian peculiarities Dvorak notd seem to be chiefly the tendency to a pentatonic (five-tone) scale, which is common to folk music around the globe, and a modal scale (usually in this case a minor scale with a lowered seventh step) common to most European folk music.
The earliest sketches date from December, 1892. The full score of the Symphony was written out between February 9 and May 24, 1893. It was not given its title, Z-Noviho sveta (“From the New World”) until mid-November, just before it was delivered to Seidl. A public rehearsal aroused tremendous enthusiasm and the premiere on December 16th was a triumph. The score was published the following year as Dvorak’s Symphony No.5. Actually, it was the ninth symphony he had composed and it is often so designated on present-day programs.
I. Adagio: Allegro Molto A slow introduction foreshadows the main Allegro theme: a bold fanfare for two horns. Flutes and oboes follow with a fetching little tune that twists and turns upon it self. The strongest contrast comes with the famous melody for solo flute irresistibly recalling “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” one of Dvorak’s favorite spirituals. All three themes are developed separately and together, with increasing excitement. The reprise of the opening themes it followed by a triumphant coda.
II. Largo. A solemn procession of chords leads to the celebrated melody of the slow movement. The English horn chants a strain that has been adopted in this country, almost as another spiritual.
III. Scherzo: Molto vivace. We need not be overly concerned whether the opening gaiety is of American Indians or Czech peasants. The beginning and end are fiery and excited. In between there are moments which could conceivably suggest a more relaxed village scene with dancing peasants, a tootling village band and laughing crowd
IV. Allegro con fuoco. A finale of tremendous sweep and splendor id built around the sturdy, assertive theme proclaimed by horns and trombones. Material from earlier movements, recall and combined with the new, concludes this popular score in another burst of triumph…
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