Editing Symphony No. 9 (Dvořák) (section)

== Influences ==
Dvořák was interested in [[Native American music]] and the African-American [[spiritual (music)|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.<ref>Jean E. Snyder, "A great and noble school of music: Dvořák, Harry T. Burleigh, and the African American Spiritual", in Tibbets, John C., editor, ''Dvorak in America: 1892–1895'', Amadeus Press, Portland, Oregon, 1993, p. 131.</ref> Dvořák stated:

{{blockquote|I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called [[African-American music|Negro melodies]]. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gutmann |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Gutmann (journalist) |title=Dvorak's "''New World''" Symphony |url=http://www.classicalnotes.net/columns/newworld.html |access-date=2012-09-09 |website=Classical Classics |publisher=Classical Notes}}</ref>}}<!--end of quotation-->

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:

{{blockquote|I have not actually used any of the [Native American] melodies. I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the Indian music, and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, [[counterpoint]], and orchestral colour.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Neas |first=Patrick |date=March 4, 2017 |title=The Classical Beat: ... Dvorak at Helzberg Hall |work=[[Kansas City Star]] |url=https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/music-news-reviews/classical-music-dance/article135859568.html |access-date=2018-11-15}}</ref>}}<!--end of quotation-->

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 [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow|Longfellow]]'s ''[[The Song of Hiawatha|Hiawatha]]''"<ref name="hiawatha">{{Cite web |last=Beckerman |first=Michael |title=About the Hiawatha Melodrama |url=http://josephhorowitz.com/up_files/File/hiawatha%20melodrama%20note.pdf |access-date=26 September 2012 |publisher=josephhorowitz.com}}</ref> (Dvořák never actually wrote such a piece).<ref name="hiawatha" /> He also wrote that the third movement [[scherzo]] was "suggested by the scene at the feast in ''Hiawatha'' where the Indians dance".<ref name="hiawatha" />

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]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kerkering |first1=John D. |url=https://archive.org/details/poeticsofnationa0000kerk |title=The Poetics of National and Racial Identity in Nineteenth-Century American Literature |last2=Gelpi |first2=Albert |last3=Posnock |first3=Ross |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2003 |isbn=0-521-83114-8 |author-link2=Albert Gelpi |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Beckerman |first=Michael Brim |title=New Worlds of Dvorak: Searching in America for the Composer's Inner Life |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2003 |isbn=0-393-04706-7}}</ref> Most historians agree that Dvořák is referring to the [[pentatonic scale]], which is typical of each of these musical traditions.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clapham |first=John |year=1958 |title=The Evolution of Dvorak's Symphony "From the New World" |journal=[[The Musical Quarterly]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |issue=2 |pages=167–183 |doi=10.1093/mq/XLIV.2.167}}</ref>

In a 2008 article in ''[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]'', prominent [[Musicology|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."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Horowitz |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Horowitz |date=11 January 2008 |title=New World Symphony and Discord |url=http://chronicle.com/article/New-World-SymphonyDiscord/17761/ |journal=[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]}}{{subscription required |date=September 2012}}</ref> 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 (music critic)|Michael Steinberg]] writes<ref>[[Michael Steinberg (music critic)|Michael Steinberg]], ''The Symphony: A Listener's Guide'', Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 152</ref> that a flute solo theme in the first movement of the symphony resembles the [[Spiritual (music)|spiritual]] "[[Swing Low, Sweet Chariot]]".<ref>"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" was written by [[Wallis Willis]], a Native American of the Choctaw Nation and former slave and popularized by the African-American [[Fisk Jubilee Singers]]</ref> [[Leonard Bernstein]] averred that the symphony was truly multinational in its foundations.<ref>[[Leonard Bernstein]]: 1953 American Decca recordings. DGG 477 0002. Comments on the 2nd compact disc.</ref>

Dvořák was influenced not only by music he had heard but also 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.<ref>Letter to Emil Kozanek, 15 September 1893, translated in ''Letters of Composers'', edited by Gertrude Norman and Miriam Lubell Shrifte (1946, Alfred A. Knopf, New York).</ref> It has been said that Dvořák was inspired by the "wide open spaces" of America, such as prairies he may have seen on his trip to Iowa in the summer of 1893.<ref>Sullivan, Jack (1999), ''New World Symphonies: How American Culture Changed European Music'', Yale University Press, p. ix</ref> 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.{{efn|For example, the Chicago Symphony, 19 June 2009.}}

Dvořák was also influenced by the style and techniques used by earlier classical composers including [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] and [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Antonín Dvorák (1841–1904) |url=http://spotlightonmusic.macmillanmh.com/n/teachers/articles/composers-and-lyricists/anton-in-dvor-ak |access-date=8 December 2014}}</ref> The falling fourths and timpani strokes in the ''New World Symphony''{{'}}s Scherzo movement evoke the Scherzo of Beethoven's [[Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)|Choral Symphony]] (Symphony No. 9). The use of quotations of prior movements in the symphony's final movement is reminiscent of Beethoven quoting prior movements in the opening Presto of the Choral Symphony's final movement.<ref name=dvorak.cz />