TRACING DVOŘÁK’S MUSICAL PATH With his three final symphonies, Antonín Dvořák reached the pinnacle of his craft, uniting his Czech heritage with the inspiration and discipline he inherited from Beethoven and Brahms. In a rare opportunity to hear these masterpieces in close proximity, Music Director Ludovic Morlot traces Dvořák’s musical path through the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth symphonies — the journey of the son of a Bohemian innkeeper who conquered Europe and won over the New World. Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances made him an international sensation, but he aspired to be more than just a “Czech” composer. His Symphony No. 7, requested by London’s Royal Philharmonic Society — the same organization that had commissioned Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony — reveals Dvořák at his most cosmopolitan, weaving gorgeous and melancholy strains in minor keys. The Eighth Symphony, by contrast, has the warm, nostalgic tone of a seasoned world traveler returning to the idylls of his youth. When Antonín Dvořák arrived in the United States in 1892, his hope was to lead Americans “into the Promised Land, the realm of a new, independent art, in short a national style of music!” His final symphony, subtitled “From the New World,” demonstrated that America’s local musical traditions could form the basis of a new national sound. Drawing inspiration from Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha as well as Native American melodies that had been transcribed by musicologists, the “New World” Symphony reads like a heartfelt dispatch from a country that was just discovering its own distinctive music.
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