Very few approaches bring history alive so vividly as the direct testimony of those who lived it. True, we may have to work a little harder to understand the context and translate the voices, but we have the satisfaction of feeling like a participant rather than a bystander.

Today this testimony can come in many forms, especially the images of movies and television that we take so much for granted. Even with unexpected events such as natural disasters there are almost always amateurs nearby who can press their consumer cameras into quick service.

This was certainly not the case more than a century ago during Antonin Dvorak's stay in America. It was a year after Dvorak's departure from New York that the Lumiere brothers in Paris began recording and exhibiting their first crude (but magical) movies. The audio recording cylinders that were just being developed in the 1890s were viewed at that time as best suited for documenting disappearing cultures. For that reason they were first used by anthropologists to record the music and rituals of native Americans. Although the still camera existed, taking pictures remained a rarity--a highly formal, often stiff affair reflected in the very few pictures of Dvorak and his family during their stay in America.

Even so, many of the direct participants in Dvorak's American life lived until after the Second World War--some even into the 1960s. These include Mrs. Jeannette Thurber, the founder of the National Conservatory of Music; the Czech-American violinist/violist Josef Jan Kovarik, Dvorak's personal secretary in America; Harry T. Burleigh, the African-American student at the National Conservatory whose renditions of plantation songs stirred Dvorak to his depths (and whose 1919 recording of "Go Down, Moses" counts as one of this program's treasures); the Dvoraks' six children; and Frank Kapler, Paul Sonnenschein, Alois Reiser, and Frank Cuchynka, each of whom had encountered Dvorak during their childhood.

Sadly, no one thought to record the actual voices of Mrs. Thurber or Kovarik or the Dvorak children. Only one person had the foresight to think of audiotaping any of the survivors. My late Los Angeles friend and colleague William Malloch (a superb musician, broadcaster, and chronicler of music history) was farseeing enough to interview in the mid-1960s the last four survivors--Kapler, Sonnenschein, Reiser, and Cuchynka--that he could track down. Their often hilarious accounts are referenced in the appropriate places throughout this program (or you can use our Audio Index to go straight to them). Perhaps the last surviving witness to the premiere of the New World Symphony was one Agnes Blatt, who offered her recollections to Howard Shanet in 1961 (see the last item in this section).

So in Dvorak's case we are left overwhelmingly with written testimony, ranging from contemporary newspaper articles to personal letters and correspondence. A sizeable portion of what we have consists of recollections and memoirs committed to print many years after the actual events they describe occurred. You will have to decide in each case whether this gap compromises the accuracy of what is being said.

A good portion of the testimony stems directly (and sometimes indirectly) from Dvorak himself. Indeed, few composers have appeared so eager to put themselves on the record about so many aspects of life-- including his own music--as Antonin Dvorak. By comparison, a towering composer such as Beethoven had almost nothing to say about his own music.

It may surprise you to see that a sizeable number of the newspaper articles include printed music examples. That already tells us a great deal about the musical literacy of newspaper readers in the 1890s. Except in specialized music journals it is scarcely possible today to imagine any writer being granted a request for a music example. These articles are marked with a music note icon. To make it easier for you to follow, I have performed all of the examples, which you can activate by clicking on the music icon at the head of the example.

Other primary material sheds light on the turn-of-the- century America that Dvorak came to know. For example, Moses King's 1893 Handbook of New York City conjures up the sights and sounds of 1890s urban America as vividly as--and more comprehensively than--Theodore Dreiser's novels Sister Carrie and The Genius. You cannot fully understand the impact of America on Dvorak or of Dvorak on America without sampling these documents directly.

I have been unable to resist the inclusion of a small number of items that do not bear directly on Dvorak's American sojourn but document the magnitude of his impact. For example, four letters from November 25, 1928 to the Editor of The New York Times debate the role played by Negro spirituals in the New World Symphony as heatedly as if the work had been written 35 days rather than 35 years before.

Bits and pieces of the record directly documenting Dvorak's stay in America and its impact have been available for many years in widely divergent sources--biographies, collections of letters and reminiscences, scholarly articles, doctoral dissertations, and the archives of major libraries. Yet a considerable amount has languished in obscurity for the last century. This is all the more regrettable since the combined testimony of these voices--almost all of which were published in English--are as direct, as timely, and as compelling today as they were a century ago.

Although the more than 200 items and 220,000 words that I have gathered easily represent the largest share of direct testimony ever presented in one place, they are far from exhaustive. I have had to pick and choose, focusing on those materials that shed the brightest and broadest light on the almost boundless subject of Dvorak in America. Combined with the interactive features of this program, they should facilitate a deeper and richer understanding of Dvorak in the New World than has ever before been possible.

What these materials add up to is the outline of a cultural history of turn-of-the-century America--an America struggling with issues that still haunt her: What is American art (if indeed there is any such thing)? What role--if any--ought government to play in supporting the arts? How can the contributions of so many diverse constituencies--Native Americans, Europeans, African-Americans --be reconciled? What roles do race and class play in the arts? Are distinctions between "high" and "low" art useful? What meanings, if any, does a wordless symphony express? In the section (12) on "The New World Symphony" I attempt to come to terms with these themes as they intersect with the creation and meteoric rise in popularity of the New World Symphony.

"Music scholarship" is often viewed as being tedious and boring. Not in the right hands! This section concludes with essays by two active scholar/musicians whose work brings the issues they address to life. In particular, Michael Beckerman's identification of the author of the most provocative journalism about Dvorak in America is scholarship at its most satisfying.

Many of you will be encountering primary sources (i.e. the sources from those directly involved in an historical moment--not the secondary sources of those who write about it later) for the first time. When we read a secondary account of some event we expect it to be clear and smooth. However, when we work with primary sources the flow is much more erratic and discontinuous. Some passages carry enormous importance, while others can for all practical purposes be skipped. In the column to the right I have offered periodic guidance to the items you will be encountering.

A few final words about punctuation and syntax. I have left as much of the original language intact as possible. But in some cases common sense dictated uniformity. I have consistently transposed turn-of-the-century dates such as "1829/7 92" to "July 29, 1892." There seemed to be no virtue in observing meaningless distinctions or archaic orthography. I have also standardized a few other titles--for example, "Go Down, Moses" instead of the frequent "Go Down Moses"-- where preserving them offered no advantage. In numerous instances I have included illustrations that accompanied articles where they added significantly to the story. For example, the January 23, 1894 article in the New York Herald, announcing the forthcoming benefit concert for the HERALD Clothing Fund, includes an account of a blanket made by a subscriber entirely from newspapers. This is probably the only chance you will ever have to see a line drawing of a blanket made entirely from newspapers. I have taken the liberty of supplying brief parenthetical [ ] definitions for the most archaic words. There seemed little reason to send most users scurrying to look up "archon" [ruler, leader]. Although this material could be organized in several ways, I have chosen to present it chronologically (acknowledging that precise dates for a few items are conjectural). In this way, users can relive the experience as the participants did, or they can use the "Find" feature to browse subjects of interest at will.

What follows are the raw materials--the frozen gossip--of history. How many different ways can you bring them to life?

Home | About This Site