Dvorák "From the New World" Symphony No. 9 / Giuseppe Patané / Moldau - Smetana / Ádám Medveczky / Hungaroton White Label

UPC 5999882817156

Audio CD 1987

HRC 064

MADE IN HUNGARY

TOTAL TIME: 56:56

English Summary:

Dvorák composed this work in 1893; Anton Seidl conducted the premiere with the New York Philharmonic Society on December 16, 1893.

His most popular work from his time spent in America was the swan-song symphony he subtitled From the New World. Chauvinists among us still claim that its themes are either Amerindian or African-American, which Dvorák refuted in 1900: "Omit the nonsense about my having made use of 'American' motifs....I tried only to write in the spirit of those national melodies." This dust-up managed to ignore influences both stronger and more subtle. Dvorák already knew Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, completed in 1888, and he likewise used a motto-theme to link the four movements in his symphony in E minor. The introduction can be made to sound a lot more Tchaikovskian, indeed, than a subsequent theme can be made to sound like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," as alleged. Beyond the Slavic gravitas of both symphonies, however, Dvorák's musical signature was intrinsically Czech, even in the Largo movement that represented, he once said, Hiawatha at the grave site of Minnehaha (a quasi-Spiritual, "Goin' Home" text was created post facto by a white American pupil). By the time he heard any Amerind music, during the summer of 1893 near a Czech settlement at Spillville, Iowa, Dvorák had finished the Ninth Symphony. From the structural standpoint, two sonata-form movements (with an exposition repeat in the first) bracket two movements in song form (ABA), all of them with brief introductions and codas.

Tracklist:

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, B. 178 "From the New World"     
    
1. Adagio - Allegro 09:25          
     
2. Largo 11:59          
    
3. Scherzo. Molto vivace 08:13          
    
4. Allegro con fuoco 11:54    

Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra

Conducted by Ádám Medveczky

5. Bedrich Smetana - Moldau (Vltava) Symphonic poem

Hungarian State Orchestra

Conducted by Giuseppe Patané