A Czech Composer Teaches Americans what America Sounds Like
LPO's Beethoven and Mahler week was a success! For me, it was some of the most fun I've ever had performing. Sometimes when we, brass players, especially section players, specifically 2nd horn players have one single solo in a piece, we obsess over it and put so much pressure on ourselves for our one shining moment. In Mahler, there are so many soaring lines, intricate patterns, and delicate solos (even for 2nd horn!) that you are forced to relax and enjoy it without becoming too wrapped up in making one line sound perfect. You have so many opportunities to pour your passion out your bell that you can have more fun with it! And I certainly took advantage of that and had an amazing time on stage.
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| LPO Horns and our Music Director, Carlos Miguel Prieto after Mahler's 5th |
Opening our season with such invigorating music really set the tone for the rest of our season. This week we are jumping right into our 2nd Classics program of the year with one of the world's most beloved pieces of music. American music. Or is it... Czech music? No, I think it's Americanized.. Czech... wait a minute...
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| Antonin Dvorak |
In 1892, Antonin Dvorak was offered a $15,000 salary (that's over 25 times what he was making at home in Bohemia) to move to New York to instruct and compose full time at Jeannette Thurber's new school, The National Conservatory of Music of America. Mrs. Thurber wanted Dvorak to reboot American classical music and turn it into something unique with its own sound. American classical music at the time sounded very European, like Beethoven and Brahms, but Mrs. Thurber thought that Dvorak was the man to help American composers create a new, distinctly American style. After many financial discussions and a family vote, Dvorak accepted the invitation, but not without hesitation. It was obvious that this was mostly a financial decision and he did not have his heart fully into leaving Prague. Alas, away he went!
The National Conservatory of Music of America was extremely progressive in that it allowed women, African Americans, LGBTQ, and the underprivileged all to apply for entry. One of Dvorak's favorite pupils at the school was a baritone of African American descent named Harry T. Burleigh. Burleigh introduced Dvorak to spirituals, which Dvorak immediately declared to be what "the future of this country must be founded upon." Since Dvorak was so well known in Prague for his ability to blend Czech folk songs into classical music, it follows suit that this is what he would do to create a new, unique sound for American classical music.
Within 5 months of living in New York, Dvorak had completed his newest symphony, subtitled "From the New World." It seems somewhat important to note the "from," in that some of the symphony sounds much like Dvorak reminiscing and looking back to his homeland from America. Especially in the scherzo movement which is clearly a Czech inspired folk dance. However, much of the piece is in fact inspired by African American spirituals, such as Go Down Moses, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and the like. Dvorak protested being accused of any direct quoting of specific songs and insisted it was "merely the spirit.. which I have tried to reproduce in my new symphony." Nonetheless, it seems that whether he meant to or not, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot appears very prominently in the main theme of the first movement.
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| Harry Burliegh, Jeannette Thurber, and Antonin Dvorak making waves |
What is even more interesting is that the melody he wrote for solo English horn in the 2nd movement was so adored that it was later turned into a spiritual. Many people know the melody as "Goin Home," by William Arms Fisher, who adapted it for the hymnal with lyrics. The "Largo" movement as a whole became a tribute for the weary and the fallen and was performed at the memorial events for the deaths of both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Gerald Ford. It also inspired other African American musicians, like jazz pianist, Art Tatum in his own rendition, which you can listen to here.
The program that LPO has put together for this concert also includes James Lee III's Sukkot Through Orion's Nebula, Adolphus Hailstork's Symphony No. 1, and Florence Price's Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor. The theme of this concert is, "From the New World." It's all American music, whether it was composed by an American or, in Dvorak's case, inspired by America. All of the composers are also African American aside from Dvorak. I found the connection between all of these pieces to be quite fascinating, so I'm going to share them with you all.
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| James Lee III |
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| Adolphus Hailstork |
Adolphus Hailstork was composing in the mid to late 1900's and his works are known to have become a documentation of the African American experience. Interestingly, Hailstork mentioned that he writes music that seems appropriate for the audience it is intended for, so if his music is meant to have an impact on the black community, he used material that is idiomatic to that community. This is also true for when he writes for predominantly white audiences. If I were to make a guess just by listening to this piece, I would say it was written for mostly white audiences. As it happens, it was written for a summer music festival in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, which demographics show to be predominantly caucasian (90%). The piece is a "classical" symphony and uses traditional forms. To my ears, the primary emotion I hear is agitation. There are a lot of melodic figures and variations on these figures, but there are also a lot of dissonances and unsettling themes, especially in the opening movement. The second movement has flowing, lyrical lines inspired by a haunting folk melody that begin in the strings and are eventually passed around the woodwinds . The lyricism mixed with dissonance has an odd loveliness to it. The 4th movement (we are not playing the 3rd), brings all the themes from previous movements together and is the most fun to play, in my opinion. It's a light and bouncy rondo with interesting rhythmic displacement to amp up the fun. When I was searching for some Hailstork to listen to the other day, I happened to learn that he has written a lot of spirituals as well, including the one and only, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot! Have a listen to his version written for string quartet, I thought it was pretty fun! Connections!
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| Florence Price |
| Florence Price |
Florence Price was the first African American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra (which happens to be my "home" orchestra of Chicago under the direction of Frederick Stock in 1933!). Unfortunately, the full score to the concerto we are playing was actually lost. In 2009, a couple bought an abandoned home in south Chicago in the hopes of renovating it. They soon discovered 30 boxes of Price's papers and works and in those were 3 handwritten manuscripts of this concerto: a solo piano version, a 3 piano version, and a 2 piano version with notes about orchestration. Piano Concerto No. 1 has been reconstructed from these manuscripts and we are playing it this week! It is an attention grabbing piece for sure as Price employs a lot of jazzy elements. At first just in some chords and melodic structure, but then the 3rd section of the piece is written as a juba dance, which is very similar to ragtime and sounds extremely reminiscent of the ever popular, Entertainer by Scott Joplin. It's a very unique piece and I'm definitely enjoying playing the music of a legend in composition. As I was reading about Price, I noted that her most famous pieces were all songs, so in looking through her output and found the one and only... Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Check out her rendition for string quartet as well!
Dvorak had delved into a hidden gem of African American music and churned it into a new blend of classical music. Both he and Jeannette Thurber had hoped that American composers would pick up on what he started and run with it. Most of the time we don't really hear music that leads us to believe that happened, but this week we can see that is not entirely true. There is a rich history of black classical music and it's starting to break through the surface again.
Dvorak probably had a huge impact on American composer that came after him. Music Director JoAnn Faletta told NPR, "He made American composers think about music differently. The entire history of 20th century American music changed because of Antonin Dvorak. And Maybe his prediction, then, gave composers like Gershwin the feeling that using jazz and writing for classical orchestra was okay." Who knows if Gershwin was inspired by Dvorak's use of spirituals or Copland heard his use of folk songs and went with it. Either way, it's clear that Dvorak is an extremely important part of our musical history.
Join us at the LPO on Thursday evening to hear Dvorak's Symphony from The New World and the rest of this exciting program!
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