Eurythmy in North America Part 3

Dvorak’s New World Symphony as performed in 20 cities across the USA and Canada in 2005 Antonín Dvořák - The New World Symphony Since its wildly successful 1893 premiere in New York City, Antonín Dvořák’s last symphony, From the New World, has been widely beloved. Today it remains among the repertoire of symphony orchestras across North America and around the globe. Behind this enthusiasm lives the question, “How did an Old World composer from middle Europe reveal the Spirit of America?“ Born a peasant in Bohemia in 1841, Dvořák’s early works such as Moravian Duet and Czech Suite brought him great fame in his native land for his love of Czech folk music and the ability to marry folk and classical themes. His popularity spread to Germany and Austria, and he went on to draw inspiration from and honor the folk traditions of Moravia, Slovakia, Poland, and Russia. Dvořák’s path to America was paved by renown in England, where he won the hearts of Englishmen in 1883 with Stabat Mater, composed in the tradition of Handel’s great oratories. Dvořák came to the United States in 1892 to teach at the new National Conservatory of Music, a pioneering venture that opened its doors to promising African-American musicians. By Dvořák’s own account “the beautiful and varied themes“ of American Negro spirituals, “the local color of Indian character,“ and his fascination with the legend of Hiawatha (about which he wrote an unfinished opera) were his inspiration and, he said, “should be the basis for any real school of composition to be developed in the United States.“ In America, at the turn of the century, this was controversial. Leonard Bernstein is said to have conducted the New York Philharmonic in one of the New World’s best performances, loved for its “brash, idealistic enthusiasm.“ In a lecture in 1956, Bernstein examined each of the symphony’s musical themes and traced many of them to French, Scottish, German, Czech, and Chinese sources. Dvořák himself insisted that he “wrote in the spirit of Native American music.“ Perhaps the lasting popularity of the New World Symphony lies in the fact that it expresses both the diverse roots and the cosmopolitan striving of the American spirit.