Symphony No. 5, in E minor, From the New World, Op. 95. Dvorak

THE HALLE ORCHESTRA

(Conducted by Hamilton Harty)

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THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL ORCHESTRA

(Conducted by Sir Landon Ronald)

For three years of his life (1892-5) Dvorak lived in America, where he acted as Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. His residence there affected his composition. He who had, as a Czech composer, been greatly influenced by Czech folk-tune, began to consider the case of the poor American composer, who had no national folk-tune. In the Century Magazine, during the last year of his stay, he wrote:

'A while ago I suggested that inspiration for truly national music might be derived from the Negro melodies or Indian chants.

'I was led to take the view partly by the fact that the so-called plantation songs are indeed the most striking and appealing melodies that have been found on this side of the water, but largely by observation that this seems to be recognised, though often unconsciously, by most Americans.

'All races have their distinctive national songs which they at once recognise as their own, even if they have never heard them before. It is a proper question to ask, what songs, then, belong to the American and appeal more strikingly to him than any others? What melody would stop him on the street if he were in a strange land, and make the home feeling well-up within him, no matter how hardened he might be or how wretchedly the tunes were played?

'Their number, to be sure, seems to be limited. The most potent, as well as the most beautiful amongst them, according to my estimation, are certain of the so-called plantation melodies and slave-songs, all of which are distinguished by unusual and subtle harmonies, the thing which I have found in no other songs but those of Scotland and Ireland.' (The word 'Harmonies' above is unfortunate; either it represents a mis-translation, for it seems unlikely that Dvorak actually wrote in English, or it is used in the curiously vague sense of the poets.)

Before this article appeared, Dvorak had already illustrated its thesis by the composition of his New World Symphony, first performed, under the conductorship of Anton Seidl, in New York, in 1893 (the first British performance was at a Philharmonic Society's concert in June of the following year).

The Symphony does not make actual use of Negro tunes, but much of its subject matter is obviously modelled upon these or affected by them; in other parts it is certainly more Slav than Slave.

Note for instance an apparent reflection of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, in a subject of the First Movement :

In the description that follows I have taken advantage of a very highly coloured piece of orchestration (for that this Symphony certainly is) to call attention to the rôles of the various instruments, these Records offering a splendid opportunity to any gramophonist who wishes to become intimately acquainted with the innumerable and widely contrasted timbres of the various sections and individual members of the orchestra.

A GUIDE TO THE MUSIC.

Introduction (Adagio Slow and broad).

This is portentous and pessimistic. At the opening the 'CELLOS, very softly and mysteriously, whisper, to the accompaniment of Violas and Double Basses, this gloomy observation:

Adagio.
Celli.

8

pp

Then the HORNS give a one-note call. A FLUTE, influenced by the 'CELLOS' pessimism, repeats the tragic whisper in its girlish treble, and two OBOES reproduce meanwhile the accompaniment formerly taken by the Violas and Double Basses, a Bassoon adding a touch of bass at the end.

Then, with all their force, the whole body of STRINGS make themselves heard, taking as their matter a little three-note motif from the mystery-whisper just heard, and crying it on the housetops. KETTLEDRUMS (their

rhythm not quite clearly to be perceived, in gramophonic reproduction) thunder a rat-tat-tap and WoOD WIND and HORNS Strike in with a sympathetic chord. Three or four times this alternation of Strings, Kettledrums and Wood Wind is heard, and then these leave the task of lament for a moment to the 'CELLOS and Double BassES, who close the passage with a two-bar melody in a low region of their compass.

The FLUTES and OBOES interpose, with a querulous complaint, given out in parallel lines six notes apart, the lower Strings and Bassoons maintaining a chord underneath it. Then 'CELLOS, VIOLAS and HORNS introduce their bolder thought:

f

The FLUTE-OBOE querulousness and the VIOLA-'CELLOHORN boldness answer one another again, and then the FULL ORCHESTRA snaps four times and bursts into a roar, which finally eases its mind, so that, with a high tremolo Violin note as prelude, we burst at last into the more wholesome atmosphere of the

First Movement (Allegro molto Very lively).

Before we hear this we may for a moment consider the psychological purport of the Introduction we have just heard. It differs in mood from anything which follows.

The Symphony as a whole is by turns robust, gay, humorous, thoughtful, plaintive-but not tragic. It might, then, almost be said that this Introduction is out of sympathy with the work it introduces, but a better suggestion, if it is not too imaginative, is that it represents a spirit of despair, quickly trampled underfoot by a healthy nature.

Compare the Introduction to Tchaikovsky's Pathetic Symphony. It is equally despairing, but in this case despair is the mood of the Movement to follow and indeed (despite relief in the middle movements) of the work as a whole.

As the New World's First Movement proper opens the tragic mood is almost but not quite vanquished, the sky is no longer stormy, but a few wisps of cloud drift across it still. Loud complaint or whispered sorrow have gone, or have softened down into a feeling of mild regret which just colours the Movement in places.

The Opening Theme seems to be a transformation of a theme already heard, for it opens with a HORN phrase which, in general curve and rhythm, resembles the last-quoted theme, and then tacks on to this a vigorous balancing phrase, given to the two Clarinets and the two Bassoons, Clarinets playing in parallel thirds, and Bassoons doing the same an octave below.

I

mf Horns.

f

Clarinets & Bassoons.

This is the First Subject and the chief theme of the Movement, and for some little time treatment of it keeps the Composer busy.

The next tune to enter is this, in SECOND VIOLINS:

mp

etc.

I give it here for completeness' sake, but, alas, in both H.M.V. and Columbia Records it is almost lost under its accompanying parts.

Next enters one of the pleasantest tunes of the Movement:

Its insouciance exhibits it as an example of the spirit of 'How to be happy though minor'. (There has, by the way, a few seconds previously, been a prophetic hint of the advent of this tune, but of so fragmentary a nature that it has probably escaped most listeners.)

This tune may to some seem to take on a Scottish tinge from the fact that it is accompanied by a sort of bagpipe drone, or standing note (D) supplied by VIOLINS and a HORN. Further the flattened seventh of the key (the F natural shown in the extract above) is suggestive of military music over the Border. (With all due respect, we may ask our friends of the North how it comes about that they share with the African negro a penchant for pentatonic scales, flattened sevenths and rhythmic 'snaps', and also what is the explanation of the fact that when harmonising a tune of Negro character this Bohemian composer has felt a suggestion of the manner of their national instrument to be in keeping?)

A little later than this the listener's ear may be struck by some curious little whoops, at the top of the music; these are the work of the two FLUTES, three notes apart, executing a simultaneous shake, and of CLARINETS doubling this an octave below.

The tunes just heard are of the nature of subsidiary subjects, and soon after hearing the one just quoted we note the entrance of one which may, by the closely analytical, be recognised as the Second Subject proper-the 'Swing Low' tune already mentioned. It is softly hummed by a FLUTE to the still softer accompaniment of the Strings (Double Basses silent).