Larnelle Sings Spirituals

Larnelle Harris

Next Monday evening, Larnelle Harris will join Orchestra Kentucky in a concert, featuring Dvořák's New World Symphony and a group of spirituals from 19th century America.

You may wonder why I'm featuring Dvorak and plantation songs on the same program. There is a very good reason. Read on.

In 1884, Jeanette Thurber founded the National Conservatory of Music in New York, City. She was among the first major patrons of classical music in the US, having attended the Paris Conservatory. Fortunately for classical music, she married Francis Thurber, a millionaire who made his fortune as a grocery wholesaler. It was her ambition to found a uniquely American school of classical music composition, a national conservatory, federally funded and based in Washington DC with branches throughout the United States. In furtherance of her goal, in 1892, Thurber brought the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák to the United States to head her conservatory. Why Dvořák?

Thurber thought Dvořák was best suited for the task of building a new school of American composers. Up to that time, American's were writing mostly second-rate German music. Having studied in Paris, Thurber was well aware of the various nationalistic movements occurring in European countries. These movements came out of the desire to write music that was distinctly Russian or German, of what have you. The composers discovered that by incorporating folk music, they could create that sound.

Dvořák, for example, had great success with his Slavonic Dances. While Brahms' Hungarian Dances actually used Hungarian folk songs,  Dvořák's melodies were his own, based on the characteristics of Bohemian or Slavic folk music.

Thurber wanted Dvořák to do for American music what he had done for Czech music. So, she brought him to NYC to head the conservatory. She, and others, had the opinion that American composers would find inspiration in spirituals and Native-American music. She believed that this music was the folk music of American.

Soon after arriving, Dvořák set to work on his best-known work, his Symphony No. 9 in E minor, subtitled From the New World. This would be his example of how composers could find inspiration in African-American and Native-American songs.

Tomorrow, I will discuss spirituals and how Dvořák used them in his symphony.