{"id":7333,"date":"2022-12-13T20:03:44","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T02:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=7333"},"modified":"2022-12-13T20:40:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-14T02:40:48","slug":"new-world-symphony-old-world-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2022\/12\/13\/new-world-symphony-old-world-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"“New World” Symphony, “Old World” Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 26, 1893, the music critic and musicologist Henry Krehbiel corresponded with the famed Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904). Two weeks prior, he\u2019d conducted \u201ca lengthy interview with the composer\u201d for a New York Tribune <\/em>article on Dvorak\u2019s \u201cSymphony No. 9 in E minor, \u2018From the New World,\u2019 Op. 95, B. 178,\u201d before its premiere.[1]<\/a> Krehbiel wished to speak to Dvorak on behalf of several Black \u201cfolk songs from Kentucky\u201d he was analyzing and was requesting Dvorak help \u201csuggest a harmonization\u201d of the melodies.[2]<\/a> Krehbiel\u2014having lauded Dvorak\u2019s music and sought his guidance on folk song collection\u2014points to their mutual willingness to embrace African American\u2019s contributions to folk music and develop an American school of classical music. Yet, while the cosmopolitan Dvorak straddled the line between universalism and individualism in his composition, Krehbiel\u2019s romanticized view of slavery informing his approach to African American folk music reveals how problematic musical context can become overlooked in popular works.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Beckerman, \u201cLetters from Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s American Period,” p. 202.<\/p><\/div>\n

Returning to the above-mentioned correspondence, it\u2019s notable that on December 12, 1893, with four days to the \u201cNew World Symphony\u2019s\u201d premiere, Krehbiel had solicited Dvorak for a separate request. As Krehbiel was going to lecture on \u201cFolk-Song in America\u201d at a reception, he wanted Dvorak to \u201cattend and hear the songs which I have for illustration.\u201d[3]<\/a> The reality that both men saw America\u2019s musical \u201cfuture\u2026founded upon\u2026negro melodies\u201d positions them opposite universalist stalwarts in the debate of \u201cWhat is American Music?\u201d.[4]<\/a> However, it also situates Dvorak adjacent to Krehbiel, who romanticized the notion of slave labor and experience as \u201cinviting celebration in song\u2014grave and gay.\u201d[5]<\/a> Krehbiel brutishly brushed over the idea of African American\u2019s epigenetic trauma through stating, \u201csometimes the faculty [cultural ingenuousness] is galvanized into life by vast calamities or crises of social and national existence; and then we see its fruits in the compositions of popular musicians.\u201d[6]<\/a> Dvorak\u2019s association with Krehbiel\u2019s problematized musicological methods calls into question a key controversy surrounding American music\u2014when traditional African American melodies injected deeply into our cultural consciousness are predicated in racist assumptions, should they still be performed? Without due consideration of the cultural context in which pieces are created or popularized, canonical works like Dvorak\u2019s \u201cSymphony No. 9\u201d may remain mired in the overwhelmingly murky history of American Music.<\/p>\n

[1] <\/a>ed. Michael Beckerman, \u201cLetters from Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s American Period: A Selection of Unpublished Correspondence Received by Dvo\u0159\u00e1k in the United States.\u201d In Dvorak and His World<\/em>, 192\u2013210. Princeton University Press, 1993. https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctt7s5r0.11.<\/p>\n

[2] <\/a>Ibid.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Douglas W. Shadle, Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century American Symphonic Enterprise<\/em>, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, 246.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Henry Edward Krehbiel. Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music<\/em>, 4th edition, New York: G. Schirmer, 1914, 23.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid, 22-23.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On December 26, 1893, the music critic and musicologist Henry Krehbiel corresponded with the famed Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904). Two weeks prior, he\u2019d conducted \u201ca lengthy interview with the composer\u201d for a New York Tribune article on Dvorak\u2019s \u201cSymphony … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3366,"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-7333","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-1Uh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7333","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\/3366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7333"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7339,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7333\/revisions\/7339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}