{"id":878,"date":"2015-03-24T02:24:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T07:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=878"},"modified":"2015-03-24T02:30:28","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T07:30:28","slug":"dvorak-and-the-song-of-hiawatha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2015\/03\/24\/dvorak-and-the-song-of-hiawatha\/","title":{"rendered":"Dvo\u0159\u00e1k and The Song of Hiawatha"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Czech composer\u00a0Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k came to the United States near the end of 1892, he was met with welcoming arms in the musical community. \u00a0With 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<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0There is some evidence of his popularity in some personal correspondence to\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k which I found in\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k and His World<\/em> while perusing the Halvorson Music Library at St. Olaf College.2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Dvorak<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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. \u00a0However, 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. \u00a0He requested that the orchestra perform his newest work, the “New World Symphony” that year (1893) in December.2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0A letter on January first of 1894 confirmed that they did receive permission, and he says that the concert<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

These “native tone-expressions” link back to an earlier letter in this volume sent to\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k by a music critic and writer Henry Krehbiel. \u00a0Thanking him for the permission to do the notes on his symphony, and providing him with “3 more Negro songs from Kentucky” in case\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k wished to use them while working on his new quartet and quintet. \u00a0This 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.<\/p>\n

On December 15, 1893 \"Dvorak<\/a>Krehbiel wrote an extensive analysis and explanation<\/a>\u00a0of The New World Symphony in the daily publication of the\u00a0New-York Tribune<\/em>. \u00a0In the article, he seems to capture words that\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k had said to him during their interview, noting that the melody of the second movement\u00a0Largo<\/em>\u00a0is inspired by\u00a0Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem,\u00a0The Song of Hiawatha<\/em>. \u00a0His article even mentions the work of Alice Fletcher, who worked on transcribing and notating Native American music in the later 1800’s. \u00a0All in all, it’s amazing to see what sort of influences other people could have on\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k or the music he composed. \u00a0Letters from an orchestral society allowed them to play piece of his that hadn’t been published yet. \u00a0The request for writing notes by Krehbiel gave him an interview which eventually led to my knowledge of what inspired\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k for a small portion of his symphony. \u00a0These letters set the stage for what we now know of\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k: 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.<\/p>\n

For those interested, here<\/a>\u00a0is a link to Beckerman’s later article (written in 1992) published in\u00a0Notes.<\/em> \u00a0It further explains the relationship between the\u00a0Largo\u00a0<\/em>movement and\u00a0The Song of Hiawatha<\/em>\u00a0as well as includes a republication of Krehbiel’s 1893 article! It further explores the relationship between Krehbiel and\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k as they were in correspondence during much of the time he spent composing and conducting the New World Symphony.<\/p>\n

\n

1<\/a>\u00a0Michael Beckerman. “Dvo\u0159\u00e1k, Anton\u00edn.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed March 24, 2015, http:\/\/www.oxfordmusiconline.com\/subscriber\/article\/grove\/music\/A2257504.<\/p>\n

\n

2<\/a>\u00a0Beckerman, Michael Brim. “Letter’s from Dvo\u0159\u00e1k’s American Period: A Selection of Unpublished Correspondence Received by Dvo\u0159\u00e1k in the United States.” Dvor\u030ca\u0301k and His World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1993. 199+. Print.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Czech composer\u00a0Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k came to the United States near the end of 1892, he was met with welcoming arms in the musical community. \u00a0With a salary at the National Conservatory of about 3 times that of a U.S. Senator, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":452,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[381,384,385,383,382,386],"class_list":["post-878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dvorak","tag-dvorak-and-his-world","tag-grove","tag-krehbiel","tag-new-world-symphony","tag-song-of-hiawatha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-ea","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878","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\/452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":891,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}