Symphony No. 9 in E minor, ‘From the New World’, Op. 95
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Adagio – Allegro molto; Largo; Scherzo: Molto vivace; Allegro con fuoco
Many surveys have sought to identify the ‘World’s favourite symphony’. Antonín Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, ‘From the New World’, nearly always features among the top three. Rather than detail the technicalities of this masterpiece, we will seek to locate the qualities that have attracted praise and affection. First: ‘the percentages game’. The ‘New World’ is synonymous with the USA, and a great many people live in the USA. The symphony’s title and Dvořák’s absorption of certain stylistic features of American music, are bound to weigh heavily in its favour; hence its popularity on the western side of the pond.
The reception at the première of the Ninth Symphony in 1893 was rapturous. The New York audience applauded all four movements, and Dvořák felt obliged to take a bow each time. It was the slow movement that impressed them most. As we know, the melody played by the cor anglais in this movement featured in a TV commercial for Hovis bread. It was first aired thus in 1973. It was the same melody that prompted a general view among Americans in the 1890s that, at last, the USA and its inhabitants were being acknowledged and celebrated through this glorious evocation of ‘native American music’.
They were wrong, and they probably knew that they were. As Dvořák himself stated plainly in an interview with a reporter from the New York Herald, ‘I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the African-American melodies.’ He went on to explain that his inspiration was the Negro spiritual, not the native American (so-called Red Indian) musical tradition, despite his affection for the tale of Hiawatha; nor the hymns and chants of the Pilgrim Fathers. Indeed, while he lived and worked in the USA between 1892 and 1895, he showed little interest in other aspects of American music. He saw no special merit in the Scott Joplin rags, for example. In the racially segregated USA, some people found Dvořák’s assertion uncomfortable and difficult to endorse. Even so, it is the faux-naive character of the symphony that endears it to so many, regardless of political or historical influences.
Its appeal spreads beyond America because much of the world’s folk music is couched within a ‘pentatonic’ scale, a scale of five rather than the generally accepted eight notes to the octave. The pentatonic scale is probably best recognised in Chinese music, but it occurs widely in Scottish folk music, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ being an example; also in Czech folk music. We know that Dvořák pined for his Czech homeland during his years in the USA so, for him, these folk-like melodies may have been as evocative of Czechoslovakia as they were of negro spirituals.
Two other features of this symphony help to explain its appeal. First is its sheer fecundity of melodic invention. The ability to pluck melody from the air is a rare gift indeed. Dvořák’s melodic genius is often mentioned in the same breath as that of Franz Schubert and Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky. Johannes Brahms spoke of it with unalloyed admiration and envy. The symphony is crammed with memorable melodies, which is handy because they come back like friendly ghosts. Indeed, the cross-referencing between movements is the other feature contributing towards its popularity.
Classical composers have striven to ensure that music hangs together to retain the attention of listeners because their works tend to be longer than the norm for music outside the classical tradition. The thinking listener recognises themes, melodies or motifs when they are recalled, and is sometimes astonished and delighted by the metamorphosis that such musical material undergoes. It seems that Dvořák used the Choral Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven as his model. In Beethoven’s symphony, the fourth movement recalls the thematic material of the previous three movements, reminding us of what has gone before. But the cellos and double basses, perhaps representing the composer, cry ‘No!’ to all of these ‘returnees’, and move on to the famous ‘Ode to Joy’ that dominates from then onwards.
Dvořák says ‘Yes!’ In the second movement, he incorporates tunes from the first; in the third, he quotes themes from both preceding movements; in the finale, he recalls themes from all three earlier movements, sometimes concurrently. In this way, the symphony presents itself as a unified composition. Does it work? Most say ‘Yes’; a few say ‘Not entirely’, claiming they can detect a sledgehammer cracking a nut. If so, it’s an astonishingly popular nut and an equally popular sledgehammer.
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Adagio – Allegro molto; Largo; Scherzo: Molto vivace; Allegro con fuoco
Many surveys have sought to identify the ‘World’s favourite symphony’. Antonín Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, ‘From the New World’, nearly always features among the top three. Rather than detail the technicalities of this masterpiece, we will seek to locate the qualities that have attracted praise and affection. First: ‘the percentages game’. The ‘New World’ is synonymous with the USA, and a great many people live in the USA. The symphony’s title and Dvořák’s absorption of certain stylistic features of American music, are bound to weigh heavily in its favour; hence its popularity on the western side of the pond.
The reception at the première of the Ninth Symphony in 1893 was rapturous. The New York audience applauded all four movements, and Dvořák felt obliged to take a bow each time. It was the slow movement that impressed them most. As we know, the melody played by the cor anglais in this movement featured in a TV commercial for Hovis bread. It was first aired thus in 1973. It was the same melody that prompted a general view among Americans in the 1890s that, at last, the USA and its inhabitants were being acknowledged and celebrated through this glorious evocation of ‘native American music’.
They were wrong, and they probably knew that they were. As Dvořák himself stated plainly in an interview with a reporter from the New York Herald, ‘I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the African-American melodies.’ He went on to explain that his inspiration was the Negro spiritual, not the native American (so-called Red Indian) musical tradition, despite his affection for the tale of Hiawatha; nor the hymns and chants of the Pilgrim Fathers. Indeed, while he lived and worked in the USA between 1892 and 1895, he showed little interest in other aspects of American music. He saw no special merit in the Scott Joplin rags, for example. In the racially segregated USA, some people found Dvořák’s assertion uncomfortable and difficult to endorse. Even so, it is the faux-naive character of the symphony that endears it to so many, regardless of political or historical influences.
Its appeal spreads beyond America because much of the world’s folk music is couched within a ‘pentatonic’ scale, a scale of five rather than the generally accepted eight notes to the octave. The pentatonic scale is probably best recognised in Chinese music, but it occurs widely in Scottish folk music, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ being an example; also in Czech folk music. We know that Dvořák pined for his Czech homeland during his years in the USA so, for him, these folk-like melodies may have been as evocative of Czechoslovakia as they were of negro spirituals.
Two other features of this symphony help to explain its appeal. First is its sheer fecundity of melodic invention. The ability to pluck melody from the air is a rare gift indeed. Dvořák’s melodic genius is often mentioned in the same breath as that of Franz Schubert and Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky. Johannes Brahms spoke of it with unalloyed admiration and envy. The symphony is crammed with memorable melodies, which is handy because they come back like friendly ghosts. Indeed, the cross-referencing between movements is the other feature contributing towards its popularity.
Classical composers have striven to ensure that music hangs together to retain the attention of listeners because their works tend to be longer than the norm for music outside the classical tradition. The thinking listener recognises themes, melodies or motifs when they are recalled, and is sometimes astonished and delighted by the metamorphosis that such musical material undergoes. It seems that Dvořák used the Choral Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven as his model. In Beethoven’s symphony, the fourth movement recalls the thematic material of the previous three movements, reminding us of what has gone before. But the cellos and double basses, perhaps representing the composer, cry ‘No!’ to all of these ‘returnees’, and move on to the famous ‘Ode to Joy’ that dominates from then onwards.
Dvořák says ‘Yes!’ In the second movement, he incorporates tunes from the first; in the third, he quotes themes from both preceding movements; in the finale, he recalls themes from all three earlier movements, sometimes concurrently. In this way, the symphony presents itself as a unified composition. Does it work? Most say ‘Yes’; a few say ‘Not entirely’, claiming they can detect a sledgehammer cracking a nut. If so, it’s an astonishingly popular nut and an equally popular sledgehammer.