DVORAK-HAIWATHA-MELODRAMA CONCERT
Sunday, October 26, 3PM
Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73rd St
New York, NY 10021
Because of my family’s roots in both Czech and Native American history, I’m very excited about an upcoming program of lectures and performances at the Bohemian National Hall in New York around the theme of Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s “near obsession” with Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha. The event will feature actor Fred Melamed, cultural critic Joseph Horowitz, David Samuels, a scholar of Native American music and colonial contact, flutist Kaori Fujii, and Dvořák scholar Michael Beckerman. It will also serve as an unofficial launch for the Naxos recording of the Hiawatha Melodrama created by Horowitz and Beckerman on a CD titled “Dvorak and America.”
In 1893, Antonín Dvořák composed his celebrated Symphony No. 9 in E Minor “From the New World”, Op. 95, B. 178 (popularly known as “The New World Symphony”) during his stay in the United States. Dvořák drew his inspiration for the piece from rhythms of his native Bohemia, as well as Native American music. In the New York Herald, Dvořák articulated how Native American music influenced this symphony: “I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the Indian music, and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, counterpoint, and orchestral colour.” The third movement scherzo, he explained, was “suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians dance.”
Photo by Eva Heyd/Courtesy of Antonín Dvořák III (http://www.dvoraknyc.org/new-events/2014/10/26/dvokhiawathamelodrama)
And the people of the village
Welcomed him with songs and dances,
Made a joyous feast, and shouted:
“Honor be to Hiawatha!
He has slain the great Pearl-Feather,
Slain the mightiest of Magicians,
Him, who sent the fiery fever,
Sent the white fog from the fen-lands,
Sent disease and death among us!”
— Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha
