Dvorak: Symphony No.9 'From The New World'

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The name From the New World which Dvo ák himself gave his Symphony in E minor, Op. 95, clearly points to the basic idea underlying this work. The contact with the folk music of another land which the Czech composer made during his years in America undoubtedly had a stimulating effect on his creative imagination a fact which is evident both from available written accounts and from Dvo ák s compositions of that period. Henry Thacker Burleigh, who often demonstrated old ation songs at Dvo áks house, later emphasized how deeply impressed his teacher had been by the Negro Spirituals. It was Burleigh, too, who first drew attention to the thematic relationship between the Spiritual Swing low, sweet chariot and the second subsidiary theme of this Symphony s first movement, introduced by the flute. It seems of little account whether Dvo ák himself was aware of this similarity. But for his interest in the songs of his coloured pupils, however, such a work as the New World Symphony would never have been written. The tension built up during the slow Introduction is relaxed by the entry of the striking horn theme, which is to influence all four movements. The American character (lowered leading note) of the subsidiary theme, played by the flutes and oboes, is largely overshadowed by its mood of Slavonic melancholy. This and the second subsidiary theme, already mentioned, are in strong contrast to the principal subject of this clearly fashioned movement. For the composition of the Largo in D flat major, entitled Legend in the sketches, Dvo ák was inspired, as he himself declared, by a passage from Longfellow s epic poem of the American wilds The Song of Hiawatha , widely popular at that time. Against a background of muted strings the cor anglais plays a broadly flowing lament. Its pentatonic melody (lacking the fourth and the leading note) creates a feeling of desolation and of endless wastes. Hiawatha, son of the West Wind, mourns the death of his wife Minnehaha, the lovely Redskin girl From the land of the Dacotahs . Another scene from Longfellow s poem, the Indian dance at Hiawatha s wedding feast, comes vividly to life in the Scherzo. Here again, though, ally woven into the texture of the music there are recollections of the composer s Czech homeland. No less remarkable is the work s Finale. With contrapuntal mastery Dvo ák here combines themes from the previous movements, some of them only suggested, with the motive material of this Allegro con fuoco, whose sharply profiled main theme rings out triumphantly for the last time to crown the coda. Dvo ák worked on this Symphony from January to May 1893, and on the 16th December of that year its world premiere was conducted by Anton Seidl at a New York Philharmonic concert in the Carnegie Hall. According to a report in the New York Herald, enthusiastic applause for Dvo ák broke out after the second movement. Its immensely successful premiere launched this work, which is still the most popular of Dvo ák s symphonies, on a triumphal progress of the world s concert halls. Hans Christoph Worbs