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BPO Programme (v2) 24 OCT 2010:Layout 1 24/10/10 08:55 Page 8 Programme notes BY PETER BACK © 2010 Symphony No. 9 in E minor ‘From the New World’ Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) Adagio – Allegro molto Largo Scherzo: Molto vivace Allegro con fuoco Dvořák thought long and hard before going to live and work in America. Earlier, on the advice of Brahms, he had contemplated a less radical move to Vienna. But he was a Czech artist, with a strong attachment to his homeland, so such a move was never seriously considered. He was widely known of course, particularly in England where enthusiasm for his music had played a major part in establishing him as an international figure. Dvořák was not an adventurous man. When going on a long journey he insisted on not travelling alone and needed constant reassurance about travel arrangements. Anxious by nature, he began to show signs of agoraphobia later in life and even refused to cross the streets of Prague without the assistance of one of his students. He was also something of a hypochondriac; he worried that the cold weather might affect him in Moscow and was disturbed by reports of an influenza epidemic in England. A move to the ‘New World’, therefore, was not undertaken lightly. When, in the spring of 1891, Dvořák received a telegraph offering him a post in New York, it is hardly surprising that he turned it down without much thought. But Mrs Jeannette Thurber, the wife of a millionaire grocer, was not easily put off. She was a great philanthropist – she had founded the American Opera Company and the National Conservatory of Music of America. In June she sent another message: 'Would you accept Director National Conservatory of Music New York October 1892 also lead six concerts of your works.' She was confident that Dvořák could realise her dream of establishing a national American school of composition. After a great deal of negotiating he agreed to accept the position, initially for two years. Understandably he was anxious about what lay ahead. Sadly, he would be parted from his four older children and he would miss his friends and the country that meant so much to him. On the other hand he realised there would be many valuable and rewarding experiences ahead and that much was to be gained by plunging into the unknown. So, with a great deal of trepidation, Dvořák began his great American adventure. From New York, on 12 April 1893, Dvořák wrote: ‘I have just finished a new symphony in E minor. It pleases me very
BPO Programme (v2) 24 OCT 2010:Layout 1 24/10/10 08:55 Page 9 Barry Wordsworth Music Director/Principal Conductor much and will differ very substantially from my earlier compositions. Well the influence of America can be felt by anyone who has a nose.’ The influence that he mentions refers to his discovery of Negro spirituals and the plantation songs of Stephen Foster, and also in the songs of the North American Indians. None of his memorable themes are real folk melodies but it is clear that Dvořák absorbed the feeling of the spirituals and plantation songs that he heard. Many years earlier Dvořák had read Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha in a Czech translation. In New York he became seriously interested in composing an opera on this subject but did not get beyond a few preliminary sketches. The funeral of Minnehaha in the forest, however, was to inspire the symphony’s famous slow movement, a movement that also carries with it a tangible element of homesickness, something that seems to permeate all of Dvořák’s ‘American’ compositions. The Symphony in E minor ‘From the New World’ was the first work Dvořák wrote on American soil and its première was one of the most outstanding triumphs of his life. It was, as the Americans themselves appreciated, an event of historic importance. Dvořák was in America to help foster ‘a new American school of music’ – to help American composers find a national voice. He achieved this and much more. Barry Wordsworth is Music Director of the Royal Ballet Covent Garden, having previously held the position from 1990–1995. He has also been Music Director and Principal Conductor of the BPO since 1989, and in 2006 became Conductor Laureate of the BBC Concert Orchestra, having served as its Principal Conductor since 1989. From 2005–2008 he was Music Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet. In 1989, Barry Wordsworth made his first televised appearance at the BBC Proms, and has conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra regularly in subsequent seasons of the Proms. He has also toured extensively with the orchestra, including tours to Japan and the USA for their 50th Anniversary in 2002. Highlights in recent seasons have included guest appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, Guangzhou Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, New Zealand Symphony and Sydney Symphony. In the UK, he has conducted the Philharmonia, London Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In addition to his symphonic career, he has enjoyed a long and close relationship with the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet and in recent seasons has also conducted the New National Theatre Tokyo, Leipzig Ballet and the ballet of the Opéra National de Paris. He has a large catalogue of recordings, including a long association with Argo/Decca International. His recording of the ‘Last Night of the Proms’ achieved enormous popular success and his most recent release, with Bryn Terfel and the LSO, won a Grammy Award in 2007. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Brighton and the University of Central England, and in 2006 was made an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College of Music.
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