Nelahozeves [Bohemia] 8-IX-1841-Prague 1-V-1904
Son of a host, he revealed a real passion for music as a child, so much so that in 1857 he entered the Prague organ school, completing himself in composition and violin. He was then a violist in a light music orchestra, and from 1873 to '77, organist in a church in Prague. On the recommendation of Hanslick and Brahms, he was finally granted a state scholarship that allowed him to devote himself for four years exclusively to composition. Since then, he began to make himself known with his production at home and abroad, and the numerous executions soon ensured his economic situation. He directed concerts with his compositions in Europe and America, and in 1891 he was appointed composition teacher at the Prague Conservatory. From 1892 to '95, he directed the National Music Conservatory of New Y Ork, carrying out an exciting work of research and enhancement of indigenous Indian and Negra music; From 1901, he directed the Prague Conservatory to death, where he died at the height of the celebrity, surrounded by great honors and by the esteem of all contemporaries.
Symphony n.5 in MINI (from the new world) op. 95 (1893)
Symphony n. 9 In Migli Minor by Antonín Dvořák, op. 95, also known by the title of Symphony "from the New World," is the ninth and last symphony of the Czech composer. It was published by the author as Symphony n. 5 because the first four symphonies were not considered and published posthumously.
As we know, in the period of American residence Dvorak intensely dealt with Indian and Negro singing: and he composed this symphony "in the spirit of these popular melodies" without, however, having mentioned any literally. Dvořák was led to conceiving this composition in these terms live interest that brought oppressed peoples for these peoples; Not only that, but finding himself in America in his capacity as a famous European composer, he perhaps felt the duty to indicate to local composers a possible "national" way in the music field. But his example remained substantially isolated because the symphony "from the new world" remains an extensive work of a frankly European musical tradition and because a few years after the popular elements of American music, especially Negra, they would have found a way utterly different with jazz. On the other hand, the influence of the American environment, and not only of local popular music, on the fifth symphony is indisputable: Dvořák abandons here in many cases that dense and sometimes hieratic writing that had characterized the previous symphonies to infuse a spirit Fresher, inspired on the one hand to the different sense of nature that derived in contact with the great American continent, on the other hand to the relentless American way of life, which did not even allow him in the musical form long rethinking and continuous returns. Hence the wealth of ideas, episodes, themes, of weaves that characterizes the last symphony of Dvořák (and we know that, in reality, it is his ninth symphony): one of the most symphonic pages have arisen from the encounter of two civilizations Famous and most surprising of the last '800.
Here is the succession of the times of the symphony " from the new world": "adagio-allegro a lot" (the first theme of the "cheerful" has fundamental importance for the whole symphony; to note in the following of the first half the presence of two themes of typically "American" flavor); "Largo," in which the echo of the music of the American Pellirosse resounds evident; "Joke" 'very lively' - (also here in the incisive rhythm of the first theme it seems to see a reminiscence of the American popular dances); "Allegro with fire," with the most popular theme of symphony, in which the main ideas of previous times return during the imposing development.
