By January of 1891, 49-year-old Antonín Dvořák was living his “best life.” Years of struggle as a low-paid church organist, community orchestra violist, and private music teacher had eventually led to state scholarships and a career as a full-time composer. Now a mature artist whose music was being celebrated and performed not only in his native Bohemia but in European capitals from London to Vienna to Paris, he had just finally settled down and accepted a position as professor of composition at the Prague Conservatory. His personal life had also finally found equilibrium. After the deaths of the first three of his children in the space of just over two years, his wife, Anna, had borne him six more children, the youngest of whom was not yet three years old. It must have been a bit of a shock, then, a mere six months into his tenure at the Prague Conservatory, to receive an invitation from a wealthy New York philanthropist to cross the Atlantic and become the director of the new National Conservatory of Music in New York City. Equally shocking must have been the salary offered—$15,000—which was more than 30 times his salary in Prague. Despite this, he did not say yes immediately but took almost four months before deciding to leave his home and make the arduous ocean crossing to a country (and position) in the “New World.”
Following a five-month “farewell tour” of Bohemia and Moravia, Dvořák, his wife, and two of their children set sail for New York, arriving in late September 1892. His task was monumental: to establish an American national school of music—a training ground for American composers who would compose American music with a distinctly American sound. He was also tasked with composing his own “American” music, which he began doing a mere three months after setting foot on the dock. Living on the Lower East Side, Dvořák immersed himself in the sights and sounds of New York, as well as the sounds of Native American music and African American spirituals, which were sung for him by one of the Conservatory’s students. He published articles in the newspaper discussing the idea that Native American and African American music could be the foundation of a uniquely American school of composition. “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,” he wrote. Dvořák knew that the secret to creating a “national sound” was to look to a nation’s folk music. Indeed, he had used the rhythms and melodies of Bohemian folk music as the inspiration for many of his most successful works. Like a chef who can detect individual ingredients in a complex dish, Dvořák could recognize and pull apart the musical components common to Native American and African American folk music—things like the use of pentatonic scales and syncopated rhythms—and reconstitute them into his own original works. In this way, his music evokes the “spirit” of the America he saw while remaining 100 percent Dvořák’s.
The Ninth Symphony was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic shortly after Dvořák’s arrival in New York. It was completed in just over four months, and received its premiere in Carnegie Hall on December 16, 1893. By all accounts, the performance was one of the highlights of the composer’s entire career, with the capacity audience bursting into spontaneous applause after each movement, requiring Dvořák to stand and bow from the audience. Dvořák would go on to write several other works during his almost three years in the United States, each showcasing his uncanny ability to absorb the sound of a country and make it his own. The subtitle, “From the New World,” which Dvořák only added to the score at the last minute, says it all. The symphony is intended as a musical postcard, full of the impressions and sounds of America as heard through the ears of a lifelong European. The Americans were not the only ones to be enchanted, however, and the piece has continued to be among the most beloved and often performed Romantic-era symphonies, with a universal appeal that transcends both time and borders.
The symphony opens quietly with a melancholy melody in the lower strings echoed by the upper woodwinds. The mood is nostalgic, and historians have suggested that it represents Dvořák’s homesickness. The wistfulness is short-lived, however, as the entire orchestra interrupts the reverie with a dramatic outburst as if to say, “Enough reminiscing!” The tempo begins to pick up, and the low strings and woodwinds offer snippets of what will become the movement’s first heroic theme, presented by the horns. This bold, thoroughly “American” melody evokes the wide-open spaces and adventurous spirit of the New World and will recur throughout the entire symphony. The other main theme of the movement is first heard in the flute and has the character of an African American spiritual. Many hear similarities to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in the tune, but this is Dvořák’s melody, infused with the spirit of American folk song. Interestingly, both the main heroic theme and the spiritual theme share the same rhythmic pattern in their first measure, making them feel as if they are two sides of the same coin. A swaggering closing section leaves the listener eager for more.
The second movement, Largo, could not be further removed from the bravado of the first Allegro. A series of gentle chords opens the movement and leads directly into one of the most poignant melodies ever composed, offered as an extended solo for the English horn. The music is so perfectly evocative of an African American spiritual that in 1922 a former student of Dvořák’s put words to it and rechristened it as the song we now know as “Goin’ Home.” Modern-day listeners may assume that Dvořák was simply quoting the tune in his symphony, but in fact, the melody is entirely Dvořák’s own—another example of the composer understanding so intuitively the DNA of the American sound. The middle of the movement contains a profoundly sad second theme, almost funereal in its presentation. Eventually, the sun comes out again as the flute and oboe usher in a reprise of the English horn melody. The ending of the movement is especially poignant as the principal strings take up the tune, almost like a lullaby being sung as a child falls to sleep, culminating in a hushed final chord.
The third movement, Molto vivace, showcases Dvořák’s interest in Native American folk music. Dvořák had read Longfellow’s 1855 epic poem The Song of Hiawatha in translation before arriving in America and had intended to write an opera based upon it. Although the opera never materialized, Dvořák noted that this movement was inspired by the scene in the poem where the Native Americans dance. The movement is structured as a scherzo, with one main theme returning again and again, interspersed with contrasting music. The main theme is a war dance of sorts featuring whirling strings, fierce timpani blows, and a relentless, ferocious melody. In between repetitions of this music, Dvořák inserts rustic folk tunes that sound as if they could have been heard at a country dance or around a campfire.
The finale, Allegro con Fuoco, sees a return of the bravado of the first movement. The brass present the main theme, a swaggering heroic melody invoking the adventurous spirit of America. A contrasting second theme, first presented in the clarinet, is a wistful tune evoking the vastness of the open prairie. These two melodies return in various guises and are eventually joined by snippets of music from each of the previous movements as Dvořák creates a panoramic vision of grandeur. Modern audiences are still moved by this musical love letter, a postcard from an “Old-World” artist on the New World adventure of his lifetime.