So What's So American About That String Quartet Anyway?

60 Pages·2009·10.22 MB·English

by  Andy Brick

So What’s So American About That String Quartet Anyway?
American Influence in Antonin Dvorak’s String Quartet #12 in F Major

Andy Brick
917-327-0293
[email protected]
www.andybrick.com
12/17/09
V.1.62
So What’s So American About That String Quartet Anyway?

On Sept 26, 1892 the great Czech composer Antonin Dvořák came to America to begin a
three-year tenure as a pedagogue at the National Music Conservatory in New York City.
During his tenure at the conservatory, Dvořák assumed the charge of identifying and
cultivating a great and noble school of music. In doing so, he set forth a series of
captivating compositions that in part stood as alluring essays on the American musical
voice.

From the first public performances of the American compositions, Musicologists,
historians and journalists have thoroughly debated the relevance and impact of the
various spheres of musical influence that may have found their way into Dvořák’s great
American works. As Dvořák’s time in the United States was well documented by
ambitious journalists yearning to play a part in the formation of this identity, the evidence
supporting the existence of such influence is well documented.

In an attempt to clarify, strengthen, and ultimately arrive at a deeper understanding of this
influence, considerable effort has been set forth to prove that specific passages in the
music Dvořák may have encountered while in America, and in the years immediately
prior, were intended by the composer to be used as thematic material in the "American"
works. There are abundant references to the use of the beloved Negro spiritual “Swing
Low Sweet Chariot” in the Largo of the 9th Symphony “From The New World”. While
Such examples of direct quotes certainly do demonstrate an American influence in
2
Dvořák’s American work and are remarkable, they often fall short of examining the
harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic underpinnings of their subject. Although the Swing
Low Sweet Chariot quote is often cited, Dvořák tells us that he was not inclined to use
direct musical quotes. "I do not mean to take these melodies, plantation, Creole or
Southern, and work them out as themes; that is not my plan…. but I study certain
melodies until I become thoroughly imbued with their characteristics and am enabled to
make a musical picture in keeping with and partaking of those characteristics."1

Since Dvořák preferred to assimilate the characteristics of the American music that
surrounded him rather than directly quote them, we would be well served to analyze
those characteristics in an effort to better understand their influence. As well, the great
attention that has been paid to an examination of the 9th symphony is a justifiable
homage to one of the great and enduring symphonic compositions but does not allow for
a thorough understanding of Dvořák’s American musical experience. The 9th Symphony
was completed a mere 6 months after his arrival in America and Dvořák had barely set
sail on his exploration of the American musical frontier. Influence is a cumulative
phenomenon for a composer and there were many destinations and experiences in the
American musical landscape that still awaited the composer. An examination of the F
Major American String Quartet, composed the following summer, will allow us to better
enjoy a more complete version of Dvořák’s great American musical story.

1 The Illustrated American (July 23, 1892)
3
Background
On September 15, 1892, At the behest of the noted philanthropist Jeanette Thurber, and
the promise of a handsome $15,000 yearly stipend from Thurber's National Conservatory
of Music, the great Czech composer Antonin Dvořák, his wife and two of his 6 children
left their Czech homeland and journeyed to New York. In addition to supporting the
conservatory's mandate to "discover what young Americans have in them and to help
them express it", Thurber looked to Dvořák to find and initiate a new and uniquely
American musical identity.2 In a letter to his friend Josef Hlavka, Dvořák wrote:
"America is awaiting great things from me, and mainly that I show them the way to the
Promised Land and the realm of a new independent art: in short, to create a national
music”. As Dvořák would later state, he had come to New York to find "A great and
noble school of music".

If Dvořák’s process of creating that musical identity was to assimilate the American
musical vocabulary into his own musical vernacular, than its only fitting that we
understand the musical language and culture that surrounded him in America.

Eleven days after departing his Czech homeland, America greeted Dvořák at his new
residence on 17th street in New York City. It was early autumn 1892. New York City
was the epitome of the American Melting Pot. Ellis Island was opening its gates for the
first time and United States Immigration rates were at the brink of historic highs. By
1891, the nearly 16 million immigrants that had traveled to the United States represented

2 John C.Tibbetts, et al., eds., Dvořák in America 1892-1895 (Amadeus Press, 1993), 7.
4
a cultural, racial and ethnic amalgamation of Germans, Irish, Italians, Scottish,
Norwegians, Swiss, blacks, whites, and Asians. Not only did Dvořák’s more tranquil
Czech homeland stand in sharp contrast to the bustling life of New York City but The
great representative of European musical tradition had landed just a few city blocks from
the birthplace of American Popular music: Tin Pan alley. It was there that the songs of
the great American tunester Stephen Foster found a home and figured prominently in
blackface minstrel shows of the day. Just a mile uptown, Broadway was celebrating
Charles Hoyt’s musical A Trip to Chinatown and the great British comic operas of
Gilbert and Sullivan were finding their way to the New York stage. By the time of
Dvořák’s arrival, Vaudeville, that dazzling display of heterogeneous splendor, had come
to National prominence and the Songs of the Negro were on the American tongue.

It was the age of great showmen and traveling entertainers and although just 8 months
earlier, the epoch of the American Indian had come to a close with the massacre at
Wounded Knee, the nearly mythological status of the American Indian had already been
embedded into American lore. Circus-like "Wild West" attractions such as "Buffalo
Bill's Wild West” featured the infamous Sioux war chief Sitting Bull, gun touting heroine
Annie Oakley, and a band of twenty and by the spring of 1893 Dvořák had been taken to
see the extravagant spectacle.3

If daily life of the New York city cultural landscape was not diverse enough to offer a
rich palate of musical colors from which Dvořák could forge a “Great and Noble School

3 Michael B. Beckerman, New Worlds of Dvořák: Searching in America for the
composer's inner Life (WW Norton & Company, New York 2003), 17
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of music”, imagine his astonishment as he first took post at Thurber's National
Conservatory. That very week, New York witnessed a procession of over 51,000 in a
parade of "many miles of men in the great Columbus Procession” The chaos of the
procession which literally passed by Dvořák’s window, was reported by the New York
Herald on October 13, 1892: "the echoes of brass bands awoke from their slumber of a
few hours and pervaded the city... Listeners got the brunt of it, for the bands lapped each
other in great style, with all kinds of tune and time running amuck..."4

Dvořák was not opposed to savor all the commotion. He loved to linger at the New York
Cafes and Taverns and it is well known that he had journeyed with friends and colleagues
in search of festivities. A very enticing portrait of such an experience is painted by John
Tibbetts:

"There were more than eighty saloons in the fourteen block stretch
along Bowery Street...and, as much as he enjoyed the beer, Dvořák
was even more fascinated by the exotic, unfamiliar music, a
veritable collage of diverse ethnic traditions. Typically, an
orchestra of women dressed in yellow silk played from a little
stage in the center of the main room. Customers pounded their
glasses on the tables in rhythm...." 5

Even if Dvořák sought respite from the bombardment of New York City's sonic bedlam
in the halls of the National Conservatory, he was not free from the American musical
sway. The very mandate of Thurber's conservatory was to open its doors to all regardless

4 New York Herald, 13 October 1892
5 John C.Tibbetts, et al., eds., Dvořák in America 1892-1895 (Amadeus Press, 1993), 42.
6
of sex, race or ethnicity and within a month, Jeanette Thurber was advocating
Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha as the subject of the great American Opera. James
Huneker, piano faculty at the conservatory and noted American Music critic had
delivered a copy of an article entitled "Negro Music" from the December 1892 issue of
the Journal Music and shortly thereafter, Henry Thacker Burleigh, a Student of the
National Conservatory, was singing the plantations songs of his enslaved grandfather and
New York Herald columnist was passing Indian melodies to the great composer.

Like Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner before him Dvořák did not shy away from
The German romantic tradition of immersing himself in the folk music of the nation and,
for Dvořák, this was not a difficult task to accomplish. The sound of America was all
around him and many were eager to contribute to his education. As Dvořák noted,

"It matter(ed) little whether the inspiration for the coming folk
songs of America (was) derived from the Negro melodies, the songs
of the creoles, the red man's chant, or the plaintive ditties of the
homesick German or Norwegian. Undoubtedly the germs for the
best in music lie hidden among all the races that are commingled in
this great country…. When (the musician) walks he should listen to
every whistling boy, every street singer or blind organ grinder. I
myself am often so fascinated by these people that I can scarcely
tear myself away, for every now and then I catch a strain or hear the
fragments of a recurring melodic theme that sound like the voice of
the people. These things are worth preserving, and no one should be
above making a lavish use of all such suggestions." 6

6 "Music In America," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Feb. 1895
7
The stage was set, Dvořák had arrived in the New World to take appointment at the
national conservatory and identify and demonstrate a national school of music. All the
parts that would define a truly American influence were on Dvořák’s stand. The lights
dimmed and the world awaited the confluence of their sway.

The American String Quartet

In June 1893, after his first term at the National Conservatory was complete, Dvořák left
the commotion of New York City for the pastoral setting of the countryside. Within just
a few days of his arrival in Spillville, Iowa, Dvořák composed his American String
Quartet in F Major. The quartet was sketched in the amazingly brief period of three
days. The music is so naturally simple, exotic, irrepressible and uninhibited from the
imposing demands of the European quartet tradition that it seems self-evident.
"Seriousness gives way to the cultivation of the bucolic, counterpoint among the
instruments is replaced by drones and ersatz drumbeats. Difficulty and complexity are
replaced by an almost amateur sense of ensemble and musical logic yields to a
Hausmusik aesthetic…. behaving decidedly anti-European that means, in this case, above
all, anti German”7

Shortly after his Spillville summer Dvořák reflected: “I should never have written these
[American] works 'just so' if I hadn't seen America."

7 Schick, Harmut. “What's American about Dvořák’s 'American' Quartet and Quintet?”
Czech Music 18 no 2 pg 72-83
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What was it that Dvořák had experienced in his first year in America that caused him to
write the Quartet and the other American compositions “just so”? If we look at the
abundance of musical influences that surrounded the composer in that first year, we see
that there were, above all others, two primary sources of influence on the American
String Quartet.

The Negro Influence in the American String Quartet

Of the many possible musical influences that surrounded Dvořák upon his arrival in New
York, none was more salient than that of the American Negro. And although prior to
composing the American String Quartet, Dvořák claims to have made “a serious study of
the national music of the North American Indians”8 and had likely encountered various
printed accounts of Native American music, he certainly would have had much more
direct contact with that music after his arrival in Spillville Iowa in June 1893. The
evidence of newspaper interviews with Dvořák prior to composing the American String
Quartet demonstrates that until his departure for Spillville, he was far more drawn to the
music of the American Negro than that of the American Indian.9 In the month prior to
penning the American String Quartet, the New York Herald revealed the composers
thoughts:

8 "Dr. Dvořák’s Great Symphony,” New York Herald, 16 December 1893.
9 John C.Tibbetts, et al., eds., Dvořák in America 1892-1895 (Amadeus Press, 1993),
114.
9
“ 'I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be
founded upon what are called the negro melodies. This must be
the real foundation of any serious and original school of
composition to be developed in the United States. When I first
came here last year, I was impressed with this idea and it has
developed into a settled conviction. These beautiful and varied
themes are the product of the soil. They are American. They are
the songs of America and your composers must turn to them. All
of the great musicians have borrowed from the songs of the
common people.... In the negro melodies of America I discover all
that is needed for a great and noble school of music."10

Dvořák’s “settled conviction” that a national school of composition be founded upon the
negro melodies was not unfounded. Many of those who had befriended Dvořák had
fervidly provided various source materials for the composers review and study. Many Of
these contributions came from journalists who, with the turn of a page, were at once news
reporters, sensationalists and self-proclaimed personal confidants to Dvořák. Among the
most notable of those having an early impact on Dvořák’s American experience was
James Gibbons Huneker, a Journalist for the National Courier, piano teacher and press
representative at the National Conservatory.

Negro Music

Dvořák’s arrival and mission in the United States became a favored subject of the late
19th century cultural press. Eye catching stories with strongly opinionated subjective

10 "The Real Value of Negro Melodies” New York Herald, 21 May 1893.
10