Correction: ‘From a New World’ in the title card should be ‘From the New World’. Apologies for the error!
Antonín Leopold Dvořák (8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904)
Symphony No.9 in E minor, Op.95; B.178, ‘From the New World’
2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B-flat & A, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in E, C and F, 2 trumpets in E, C and E-flat, 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, strings
Berliner Philharmoniker (orchestra), Ferenc Fricsay (conductor)
Stereo recording, 1959
0:06 – I. Adagio—Allegro molto
10:07 – II. Largo
24:01 – III. Scherzo: Molto vivace
32:16 – IV. Allegro con fuoco
The Symphony No.9 in E minor, “From the New World”, popularly known as the New World Symphony, was composed by Antonín Dvořák in 1893 while he was the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America from 1892 to 1895. It is by far his most popular symphony, and one of the most popular of all symphonies. In older literature and recordings, this symphony was often numbered as Symphony No.5. Astronaut Neil Armstrong took a tape recording of the New World Symphony along during the Apollo 11 mission, the first Moon landing, in 1969. The symphony was completed in the building that now houses the Bily Clocks Museum.
Dvořák was interested in Native American music and the African-American spirituals he heard in North America. As director of the National Conservatory he encountered an African-American student, Harry T. Burleigh, later a composer himself, who sang traditional spirituals to him and said that Dvorak had absorbed their ‘spirit’ before writing his own melodies. Dvořák stated:
“I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them.”
The symphony was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, and premiered on December 16, 1893, at Carnegie Hall conducted by Anton Seidl. A day earlier, in an article published in the New York Herald on December 15, 1893, Dvořák further explained how Native American music had been an influence on this symphony:
“I have not actually used any of the [Native American] melodies. I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the Indian music, and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, counterpoint, and orchestral colour.”
In the same article, Dvořák stated that he regarded the symphony’s second movement as a “sketch or study for a later work, either a cantata or opera … which will be based upon Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha” (Dvorak never actually wrote such a piece). He also wrote that the third movement scherzo was “suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians dance”.
Dvořák was also influenced by the style and techniques used by earlier classical composers including Beethoven and Schubert. The falling fourths and timpani strokes in the New World Symphony’s Scherzo movement evokes the Scherzo of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. In his fourth movement, Dvořák’s use of flashbacks to prior movements is reminiscent of Beethoven quoting prior movements as part of the opening Presto of the last movement.
At the premiere in Carnegie Hall, the end of every movement was met with thunderous clapping and Dvořák felt obliged to stand up and bow. This was one of the greatest public triumphs of Dvořák’s career. When the symphony was published, several European orchestras soon performed it. Alexander Mackenzie conducted the London Philharmonic Society in the European premiere on June 21, 1894. Clapham says the symphony became “one of the most popular of all time” and at a time when the composer’s main works were being welcomed in no more than ten countries, this symphony reached the rest of the musical world and has become a “universal favorite.” It was performed (as of 1978) more often “than any other symphony at the Royal Festival Hall, London” and is in “tremendous demand in Japan.”
The theme from the Largo was adapted into the spiritual-like song “Goin’ Home” (often mistakenly considered a folk song or traditional spiritual) by Dvořák’s pupil William Arms Fisher, who wrote the lyrics in 1922.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_(Dvořák)
Project files:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16R6VF9ulP1dYrCcbjQDBc46HTSfWHCXk?usp=sharing
Recording:
https://youtu.be/hRdF4ELTuPI