A Czech Man in New York

131 years ago, on September 27, 1892 - the Bohemian-born Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) came to the United States. What for? To become the Directorship of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City.

By the age of 50, Dvorak had become an exceptional figure among living composers: he was successful, enjoyed worldwide appreciation, and was comparatively affluent. He was even compared to Brahms, but mostly considered his second but truthfully, the Czech accent by which Dvorak’s music had, was really more popular than Brahms.

It was this fame and reputation that brought him to the attention of the wife of a wholesale grocer, Jeanette Thurber. She was, arguably, the greatest patron of music the United States has ever known. I could argue that if she had attached her name to any of the projects she was involved in, she would be as renowned today as Andrew Carnegie, Augustus D. Juilliard, and Avery Fisher. In 1885, Jeanette founded The National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City. Modeled on the Paris Conservatoire, its avowed mission was to create: “a national musical spirit”.

Unfortunately, it shut its doors due to the Black Thursday crash of 1929. It was the first of its kind in America and provided students an affordable education, including for African Americans and the disabled.

Anyway, back to Dvorak! See, Jeanette Thurber cabled Dvorak in Prague and offered him this position for Directorship. She wanted him to help found - through his example - an “American” school of composition at a time when almost every American composer wanted to sound like Brahms.

Basically, she made him an offer he could not refuse: come to New York, become the Director of the Conservatory, teach three hours a day, and put together some concerts. Dvorak was offered a three-year contract at a whopping $15,000 a year ($450,000 today and a 2500% increase over Dvorak’s salary at the Prague Conservatory).

Hey Siri, what is “Yes” in Czech?

He arrived with his family after what was described as a “stormy” 12-day passage.

It was in this house that he composed two of his greatest pieces of music ever composed in the U.S: his Cello Concerto in B minor and the New World Symphony. Dvorak in American provoked a media frenzy, and no wonder: he was the first great European composer to ever visit the United States. Among the first published descriptions of Dvorak after his arrival appeared in The Musical Standard in October of 1892 and reads:
“He is not an awesome personality at all. He is much taller than his pictures would imply and possesses not a tithe of the bulldog ferocity to be encountered in some of them. [He is] about 5 ft. 10 or 11 inches tall, [a man] of great natural dignity, a man of character. He is not beautiful in the forms of the face, but the lines of his brow are so finely modeled, and there is so much emotional life in the fiery eyes and lined face, that his face is not easily forgotten.”

Lucrative though it was, Dvorak did not take the job just for the money, no. Neither did he travel from Prague to NYC as a result of mid-life wanderlust or a desire to increase his fame. He was afraid of travel, terrified of sickness and fearful of performing in public before non-Czech audiences.

He was in search of inspiration…which he found - Big Apple time - in the “New World”. He was also seduced by the "very “idea” of America: a huge, sprawling, somewhat barbaric, energy-filled meritocracy in which his working-class roots would be considered an asset rather than a liability.

An “American” Music

What was this “American” soundscape Dvorak was trying to find?

Just a few weeks after Dvorak’s arrival, the national celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ first “American” journey began. As a result, Dvorak had a front-row seat for one of the most sustained binges of “Americana” this nation had ever seen.

December 1892 - two months after Dvorak’s arrival - the well-known music critic James Huneker wrote an article suggesting that a “messiah of American music” (guess who?) should employ “negro melodies” to create a new, distinctly American style of concert music. For her part, Jeanette Thurber gave Dvorak a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, Song of Hiawatha, with the suggestion that Dvořák use it as the basis for what would be, in her words, “the great American opera.”

Dvorak was swept up by all of this. An African American faculty member of the Conservatory named Henry Burleigh sang to Dvorak spirituals and “Plantation Songs” by Stephen Foster.

Dvorak’s cursory investigation into “American culture” took him to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in the spring of 1893, where he heard and saw members of the Oglala Sioux tribe sing and dance. Michael Beckerman, a Dvorak scholar, writes:

“With Jeannette Thurber working tirelessly to have Dvořák create a new American style and thus a new American school of music, he needed to select [musical] elements that would signify this American style.”

Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” was the first so-called “American works”. With its references to Negro Spirituals, the Plantation Songs of Stephen Foster and Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha, it has also been called “the first great American symphony.”

Indeed, it is a cosmopolitan creation, blending German symphonic and tone poem elements with a subtle thematic overlay of Americanisms for 'local color'. Dvorak expressed his irritation with those critics who tried to label him as an "American" composer.

“So I am an American composer, am I? I was, I am, and I remain a Czech composer. I have only showed them [meaning the Americans] I have only showed them the path they might take – how they should work!”

Author’s Notes:

Negro means "black" in Spanish and Portuguese. From the 18th to the mid-20th century, "negro" (later capitalized) was considered the correct and proper term for African Americans.  It fell out of favor by the 1970s in the United States.

Please, do not take offense to its mention in this post. I talk about history and historical context as it relates to the people in these posts. African Americans at the time of Dvorak in America referred to them specifically as “Negro Spirituals”.