Customer Reviews

Dvorak in America: In Search of the New World

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Joseph Horowitz loves the late 19th and early 20th world of culture. He is simultaneously scholar and activist. His bold, unprecendented project is to take historical moments and richly employ them to introduce the excitement of classical music to young readers. He could have no better scenario than Dvorak in the New World. Here the composer seeks to create an American musical language based on a synthesis of the high symphonic style with elements of Black and Indian music. The characters are vividly drawn and the whole is both beautifully written and wonderfully gauged for young readers. A real treat!

I see that Mr. Beckerman has submitted a positive review, which is very gracious, considering that his book is the leading competitor on this subject. I purchased both "Dvorak in America" and "New Worlds of Dvorak," and (sorry, Mr. Beckerman) my vote is solidly for "Dvorak in America."

"Dvorak in America" is a simple, informative book with very little conjecture. Horowitz is clear in the opening pages that this is a book accessible to teenage readers, and he gets the story right in a concise and interesting way. His scholarly efforts are persuasive and he successfully merges divergent details to create a fascinating account of Dvorak's journey toward the first truly "American" symphony.

On the other hand, Beckerman's book shares much of the same research and even comes with a CD of excerpts, but the positives end there. Beckerman is bent on interpreting every phrase of the New World Symphony and resorts to conjecture, even delving into other writers' conjecture. It soon becomes a tangled mess in which the hard facts are no longer recognizable.

The truth is (sadly) simple: We don't really know much about Dvorak's intentions in the New World Symphony. He shared just enough to give the piece "American" credentials, then promptly shut up to avoid tagging it as a programmatic tone poem. And that's just the way we should enjoy it! We're supposed to accept the American inspiration while giving the notes themselves a fair chance to speak to us, and speak to us they do! If I had overlooked this piece before (mostly because of its overwhelming popularity), I now find it an inspiration and a joy--with greater thanks to Mr. Horowitz than Mr. Beckerman.

Read this wonderful little book and move quickly to the music itself. A singe phrase of this music says more than any scholarly volume.

Mr. Horowitz, the author, gives us scant information about Dvorak's stay in this country. Most of this I had read before in other books. The author seems to make a case that Dvorak used Black or Native American themes in his works and that theory is very questionable. I would like to know how Dvorak worked: Did he make sketches in four-part harmony, did he write directly to manuscript paper. Was the 9th Symphony completely orchestrated when he left New York in June, 1893, or did he do the orchestration in Spillville, Iowa that summer? And, of course, the author continously uses a false title for the 9th Symphony, which I find very annoying...
THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY is not the title that Dvorak gave it. It was titled,
"From The New World" and that alone should be used.
Most of this book is wasted effort.
Jack Nelson
3940 Park Blvd. #703
San Diego, CA 92103