Symphony No.9 in E minor, From the New World

Whatever the state of the controversy about the melodic material of the New World Symphony - whether it derives from Black-American or American-Indian sources on the one hand or from Dvorak’s native Bohemia on the other - the important point is what the composer thought he was doing. About that there should be no controversy. In an interview in the New York Herald on 15 December 1893 (the day before the first performance) Dvorak quite clearly said that, having studied a number of American-Indian melodies, he tried to reproduce their spirit in his new symphony: “I have not actually used any of the melodies. I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of Indian music and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, harmony, counterpoint and orchestral colour.”

As the highly paid titular head of the National Conservatory in New York, he had set himself the task of demonstrating to his composition pupils how they could build a distinctively American symphonic tradition on the basis of their national music. Just as he had turned to the “half forgotten tunes of the Bohemian peasants” for inspiration, they should draw on the music of the Black or Indian populations. As far as he was concerned, there was no practical difference between the two and, curiously, he compared them both to the music of Scotland. Clearly, he had identified no more in them than the characteristics common to most kinds of folksong, Bohemian included. On the other hand, if he thought he was creating American melody - Indian melody, indeed, in those parts of the work inspired by Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha - it scarcely matters if Czech ethnomusicologists can claim everything he wrote as Bohemian.

The two movements that Dvorak specifically mentioned as being inspired by Hiawatha are the Largo and the Scherzo. But, if they are American in spirit, so is the first movement, not least the theme which is anticipated by the horns in the Adagio introduction and which makes a dramatic entry in E minor (on the same instruments) as the first subject of the Allegro molto. It has most of the characteristics of the other American tunes in the work, including the basic tendency to rise up and fall back in alternate phrases. The two second-subject themes - the busy flute and oboe melody in G minor and the nostalgic flute solo in G major, the latter with its unmistakable echo of the Black spiritual - are of the same kind. The whole point of the development, moreover, is to emphasise the kinship of the three themes.

Dvorak’s belief that there is no practical difference between Black and Indian music is best demonstrated by the lovely cor anglais melody near the beginning of the slow movement. Introduced by an inspired sequence of wind chords leading from E to D flat major, it sets the scene of an Indian funeral in spite of its obvious Black-spiritual associations. There is a possibly deeper sadness in the quicker middle section, where the key changes to C sharp minor for the entry of the flute and oboe in passionate unison and the lament of the clarinets over pizzicato basses. The cor anglais melody returns by way of an excited rustic piping inC sharp major and a dramatic intrusion from the first movement in the minor.

The scherzo, according to Dvorak, “was suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians dance.” Interestingly, however, although the brilliantly articulated E minor dance and the more relaxed E major woodwind song of the outer sections fulfil Dvorak’s American requirements, the C major middle section does not: it is a beautifully scored memory of Bohemian country life.

Having made its presence felt in the Scherzo as well as the Largo, the first subject of the first movement also has an important role to play in the finale. Wound up by the strings, the Allegro con fuoco projects its own material first - an E minor march on horns and trumpets, a frenzied dance on violins, and a more reflective episode on clarinet which is swept away by a theme so robust in its G major harmonies that the horns repeatedly have to utter a stern reminder of the E minor march. Over an ostinato derived from the march theme, woodwind and strings simultaneously echo fragments of the Adagio and the Scherzo, apparently to clear the way for the climactic entry of the first subject of the first movement. The resulting conflict between that theme and the E major march provokes such a crisis that the recapitulation seems a comparatively remote issue until the conflict can be resolved in the coda.

Gerald Larner

Whatever the state of the controversy about the melodic material of the New World Symphony - whether it derives from Black-American or American-Indian sources on the one hand or from Dvorak’s native Bohemia on the other - the important point is what the composer thought he was doing. About that there should be no controversy. In an interview in the New York Herald on 15 December 1893 (the day before the first performance) Dvorak quite clearly said that, having studied a number of American-Indian melodies, he tried to reproduce their spirit in his new symphony: “I have not actually used any of the melodies. I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of Indian music and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, harmony, counterpoint and orchestral colour.”

As the highly paid titular head of the National Conservatory in New York, he had set himself the task of demonstrating to his composition pupils how they could build a distinctively American symphonic tradition on the basis of their national music. Just as he had turned to the “half forgotten tunes of the Bohemian peasants” for inspiration, they should draw on the music of the Black or Indian populations. As far as he was concerned, there was no practical difference between the two and, curiously, he compared them both to the music of Scotland. Clearly, he had identified no more in them than the characteristics common to most kinds of folksong, Bohemian included. On the other hand, if he thought he was creating American melody - Indian melody, indeed, in those parts of the work inspired by Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha - it scarcely matters if Czech ethnomusicologists can claim everything he wrote as Bohemian. They could also claim, incidentally, that he had first read Hiawatha in a Czech translation thirty years earlier and that he had long had the intention of setting it to music in some way. But, as Dvorak said, “it would never have been written so if I had never seen America.”

The two movements which Dvorak specifically mentioned as being inspired by Hiawatha are the Largo and the Scherzo. But, if they are American in spirit, so is the first movement, not least the theme which is anticipated by the horns in the Adagio introduction and which makes a dramatic entry in E minor (on the same instruments) as the first subject of the Allegro molto. It has most of the characteristics of the other American tunes in the work, including the basic tendency to rise up and fall back in alternate phrases. The two second-subject themes - the busy flute and oboe melody in G minor and the nostalgic flute solo in G major, the latter with its unmistakable echo of the Black spiritual - are of the same kind. The whole point of the development, moreover, is to emphasise the kinship of the three themes.

Dvorak’s belief that there is no practical difference between Black and Indian music is best demonstrated by the lovely cor anglais melody near the beginning of the slow movement. Introduced by an inspired sequence of wind chords leading from E to D flat major, it sets the scene of an Indian funeral in spite of its obvious Black-spiritual associations. There is a possibly deeper sadness in the quicker middle section, where the key changes to C sharp minor for the entry of the flute and oboe in passionate unison and the lament of the clarinets over pizzicato basses. The cor anglais melody returns by way of an excited rustic piping inC sharp major and a dramatic intrusion from the first movement in the minor.

The scherzo, according to Dvorak, “was suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians dance.” Interestingly, however, although the brilliantly articulated E minor dance and the more relaxed E major woodwind song of the outer sections fulfil Dvorak’s American requirements, the C major middle section does not: it is a beautifully scored memory of Bohemian country life.

Having made its presence felt in the Scherzo as well as the Largo, the first subject of the first movement also has an important role to play in the finale. Wound up by the strings, the Allegro con fuoco projects its own material first - an E minor march on horns and trumpets, a frenzied dance on violins, and a more reflective episode on clarinet which is swept away by a theme so robust in its G major harmonies that the horns repeatedly have to utter a stern reminder of the E minor march. Over an ostinato derived from the march theme, woodwind and strings simultaneously echo fragments of the Adagio and the Scherzo, apparently to clear the way for the climactic entry of the first subject of the first movement. The resulting conflict between that theme and the E major march provokes such a crisis that the recapitulation seems a comparatively remote issue until the conflict can be resolved in the coda.

Gerald Larner