{"id":4460,"date":"2019-10-24T07:33:30","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T12:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=4460"},"modified":"2019-12-15T17:17:50","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T23:17:50","slug":"dvoraks-letter-to-a-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2019\/10\/24\/dvoraks-letter-to-a-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Dvo\u0159\u00e1k&#8217;s Letter to a Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4536\" style=\"width: 229px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2019\/10\/Antonin-Dvorak.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4536\" class=\"wp-image-4536 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2019\/10\/Antonin-Dvorak-219x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"219\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2019\/10\/Antonin-Dvorak.jpg 219w, https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2019\/10\/Antonin-Dvorak-110x150.jpg 110w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 219px) 100vw, 219px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4536\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As we have read in the latest Shadle reading, Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s interest in involving black music into a specific American sound sparked controversy in the American classical world of music. In a letter, Anton Dvo\u0159\u00e1k wrote to Oskar Nebdal, his former student and principle conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from 1896 to 1906. The letter comes from Otakar Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s work, Anton Dvo\u0159\u00e1k, My Father. The date of the letter is unknown but I believe its reasonable to guess it came after the publication of From a New World. Dvo\u0159\u00e1k writes:<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cI am sending you Kretschmar\u2019s analysis of Symphony, but omit the nonsense that I used an American and Indian motif because it is a lie. I just wrote in the spirit of American national melodies,\u201d (Dvo\u0159\u00e1k 159).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>(Hermann Kretschmar: German musicologist)<\/p>\n<p>After reading this passage for class, I had questions regarding the intentions and thoughts of this composer. After finding this letter, I have more questions. If Dvo\u0159\u00e1k sparked so much controversy in America defending his stance of Negro music needing to make American music distinctive, then why leave out details for his friends at home. What does he mean by the spirit of American national melodies? In my last blog post, I discussed the spirituality involved in Negro Spirituals argued by H. T. Burleigh and Samuel Floyd Jr.<br \/>\nPerhaps Dvo\u0159\u00e1k didn\u2019t want to explain the race relations of America to his Czech friends and the controversy following him around. Another possibility could be the composer wanting credit for the music and not being told he stole from other sources.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HClX2s8A9IE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I find this letter fascinating. While it makes a clearer image of the life of Dvo\u0159\u00e1k during this time, it brings up more and more questions about the thought process of the composer and what occurred during this time for him.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bibliography:<\/p>\n<p>-Dvor\u030ca\u0301k Otakar, and Paul J. Polansky. <i>Antoni\u0301n Dvor\u030ca\u0301k, My Father<\/i>. Czech Historical Research Center, 1993.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we have read in the latest Shadle reading, Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s interest in involving black music into a specific American sound sparked controversy in the American classical world of music. In a letter, Anton Dvo\u0159\u00e1k wrote to Oskar Nebdal, his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2019\/10\/24\/dvoraks-letter-to-a-friend\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-19W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4944,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions\/4944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}