Symphony No. 9 (Dvořák)
The Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World", Op. 95, B. 178, 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 has been described as one of the most popular of all symphonies. In older literature and recordings, this symphony was – as for its first publication – 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.
Instrumentation
This symphony is scored for the following orchestra:- 2 flutes
- 2 oboes
- 2 clarinets in B flat & A
- 2 bassoons
- 4 horns in E, C and F
- 3 trumpets in E, C and E
- Alto trombone
- Tenor trombone
- Bass trombone
- Tuba
- Timpani
- Triangle
- Cymbals
- Strings
Form
I. Adagio – Allegro molto
The movement is written in sonata form and begins with an introductory leitmotif in Adagio. This melodic outline also appears in the third movement of Dvořák's String Quintet No. 3 in E major and his Humoresque No. 1. The exposition is based on three thematic subjects. The first in E minor is notable for its announcing and responsive phrases. The second is in G minor and undergoes a transformation such that it resembles a Czech polka. The exposition's closing theme in G major is known for being similar to the American negro spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". The development primarily focuses on the main and closing themes, and the recapitulation consists of a repetition of the main theme as well as a transposition of the second and closing themes up a semitone. The movement is concluded with a coda, with the main theme stated by the brass above an orchestral tutti.II. Largo
The second movement is introduced by a harmonic progression of chords in the wind instruments. Beckerman interprets these chords as a musical rendition of the narrative formula "Once upon a time". Then a solo cor anglais plays the main theme accompanied by muted strings. Dvořák was said to have changed the theme from clarinet to cor anglais as it reminded him of the voice of Harry Burleigh. The movement's middle section contains a passage in C minor evoking a nostalgic and desolate mood which eventually leads into a funeral march above pizzicato steps in the basses. It is followed by a quasi-scherzo that incorporates this movement's theme as well as the first movement's main and closing themes. The Largo is concluded with the soft return of the main theme and introductory chords.III. Molto vivace
The movement is a scherzo written in ternary form, with influences from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha. The stirring rhythm of the first part is interrupted by a trio middle section. The first part is then repeated, followed by an echo in the coda of the first movement's main theme.IV. Allegro con fuoco
The final movement is also written in sonata form. After a brief introduction, the horns and trumpets declare the movement's main theme against sharp chords played by the rest of the orchestra. The second theme is then presented by the clarinet above tremolos in the strings. The development not only works with these two themes but also recalls the main themes of the first and second movements and a fragment of the Scherzo. Following the recapitulation which begins in the unexpected key of G minor but later corrects itself back to the original key, the movement reaches its climax in the coda, in which materials from the first three movements are reviewed for a final time while the Picardy third is expanded after the orchestra triumphantly plays a "modally altered" plagal cadence.Influences
Dvořák was interested in Native American music and the African-American spirituals he heard in North America. While director of the National Conservatory he encountered an African-American student, Harry T. Burleigh, who sang traditional spirituals to him. Burleigh, later a composer himself, said that Dvořák had absorbed their 'spirit' before writing his own melodies. Dvořák stated:The symphony was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, and premiered on 16 December 1893, at Carnegie Hall conducted by Anton Seidl. A day earlier, in an article published in the New York Herald on 15 December 1893, Dvořák further explained how Native American music influenced his symphony:
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 Hiawatha". He also wrote that the third movement scherzo was "suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians dance".
In 1893, a newspaper interview quoted Dvořák as saying "I found that the music of the negroes and of the Indians was practically identical", and that "the music of the two races bore a remarkable similarity to the music of Scotland". Most historians agree that Dvořák is referring to the pentatonic scale, which is typical of each of these musical traditions.
In a 2008 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, prominent musicologist Joseph Horowitz states that African-American spirituals were a major influence on Dvořák's music written in North America, quoting him from an 1893 interview in the New York Herald as saying, "In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music." Dvořák did, it seems, borrow rhythms from the music of his native Bohemia, as notably in his Slavonic Dances, and the pentatonic scale in some of his music written in North America from African-American and/or Native American sources. Statements that he borrowed melodies are often made but seldom supported by specifics. One verified example is the song of the Scarlet Tanager in the Quartet. Michael Steinberg writes that a flute solo theme in the first movement of the symphony resembles the spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". Leonard Bernstein averred that the symphony was truly multinational in its foundations.
Dvořák was influenced not only by music he had heard, but by what he had seen, in America. He wrote that he would not have composed his American pieces as he had, if he had not seen America. It has been said that Dvořák was inspired by the American "wide open spaces" such as prairies he may have seen on his trip to Iowa in the summer of 1893. Notices about several performances of the symphony include the phrase "wide open spaces" about what inspired the symphony and/or about the feelings it conveys to listeners.
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 Symphonys Scherzo movement evoke the Scherzo of Beethoven's Choral Symphony. The use of flashbacks to prior movements in the New World Symphony's last movement is reminiscent of Beethoven quoting prior movements in the opening Presto of the Choral Symphony's final movement.