Tag Archives: Dvořák and His World

Dvorak’s Correspondence and What They Say About Him

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The book Dvorak and His World by Michael Beckerman includes a chapter completely dedicated to correspondence received by Dvorak during his time in America.1 These letters are supposedly not published anywhere else and have never been seen before this book. There are a wide range of letters from pleasant greetings to desperate pleas, all of which demonstrate the kind of impact Dvorak had in the American community and the world as a whole.

Letter to Dvorak regarding Requiem premiere.2

These first few letters were received by Dvorak just before and after his Requiem was first performed in Boston. The second letter is from someone giving thanks to Dvorak on behalf of the Boston government. He states that the opportunity for Bostonians to hear a premiere Dvorak’s work directed by Dvorak himself and with the ability to meet Dvorak is not something easily forgotten. He concludes his letter by stating that it is difficult to find words to describe the beauty of his work and that  “Boston is fortunate in receiving its first impression of the great work at the hand of its great composer.”3 He continues in hoping that Dvorak’s “stay in America may be as pleasant to yourself as it will surely be profitable to the country, and that Boston may have many more occasions of renewing an acquaintance so delightfully begun.”4 This letter demonstrates how much of a impact Dvorak had on the places he traveled. The language in this letter allows us to understand that the people of Boston greatly valued Dvorak’s visit and premiere, and it had a vast impact on Boston and its people.

Letters to Dvorak requesting his help.4

The second section of this chapter includes letters to Dvorak from parts of the world Dvorak was not near at the time. It is unclear whether or not Dvorak ever responded, but these letters show that Dvorak had a great impact on other parts of the world and that many people were languishing for his attention. The first letter comes from a remote location in California close to the Mexican boarder “remote and isolated that perhaps the place has never been brought to [Dvorak’s] notice.”5 They have a prosperous music society intensely studying the works of Dvorak and often come across numerous problems with obtaining copies of his scores due to their location. That being said, they have “great enthusiasm and reverence for the Master who is doing so much for the development of music in America” and they would just like to ask “Dr. Dvorak to send [them] a few words of encouragement and advice.”6 This cute interaction is one way of showing how impactful Dvorak was even on the smallest and most remote communities all so desperately wanting to learn and study Dvorak’s music.

Bibliography

Beckerman, Michael, ed. Dvorák and His World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Accessed November 1, 2023. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Footnotes

1Michael Beckerman, ed. Dvorák and His World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Accessed November 1, 2023. ProQuest Ebook Central.

2Ibid.

3Ibid.

4Ibid.

5Ibid.

6Ibid.

Dvořák and The Song of Hiawatha

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When Czech composer Antonín Dvořák came to the United States near the end of 1892, he was met with welcoming arms in the musical community.  With a salary at the National Conservatory of about 3 times that of a U.S. Senator, it’s fairly easy to see he was wanted in America.1 There is some evidence of his popularity in some personal correspondence to Dvořák which I found in Dvořák and His World while perusing the Halvorson Music Library at St. Olaf College.2

Dvorak photo

 

Among the letters sent to him are those written by amateur musicians, requesting feedback on scores, thanking him for his compositions, and asking for rights to perform his published works.  However, digging through the letters, I found some rather interesting ones. One group of letters that caught my attention was by that of an Auguste Roebbelen of the New York Philharmonic Society.  He requested that the orchestra perform his newest work, the “New World Symphony” that year (1893) in December.2 A letter on January first of 1894 confirmed that they did receive permission, and he says that the concert

“was epochal in its character, for it was the first production of a new work, by one of the greatest composers, written in America, embodying the sentiment and romance derived from a residence in America and a study of its native tone-expressions.”

These “native tone-expressions” link back to an earlier letter in this volume sent to Dvořák by a music critic and writer Henry Krehbiel.  Thanking him for the permission to do the notes on his symphony, and providing him with “3 more Negro songs from Kentucky” in case Dvořák wished to use them while working on his new quartet and quintet.  This interested me, and I followed the rabbit hole further, tracking down the original notes that Krehbiel wrote on the premier of the New World Symphony.

On December 15, 1893 Dvorak ArticleKrehbiel wrote an extensive analysis and explanation of The New World Symphony in the daily publication of the New-York Tribune.  In the article, he seems to capture words that Dvořák had said to him during their interview, noting that the melody of the second movement Largo is inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha.  His article even mentions the work of Alice Fletcher, who worked on transcribing and notating Native American music in the later 1800’s.  All in all, it’s amazing to see what sort of influences other people could have on Dvořák or the music he composed.  Letters from an orchestral society allowed them to play piece of his that hadn’t been published yet.  The request for writing notes by Krehbiel gave him an interview which eventually led to my knowledge of what inspired Dvořák for a small portion of his symphony.  These letters set the stage for what we now know of Dvořák: a man who took melodies from truly American tradition, whether positive or negative, and insisted that they be used for the core of American music. Continue reading →